Harvey Silverglate HLS 67 and FIRE co-founder, is running as a petition candidate for overseer for the second year in a row. A fierce free speech advocate and devoted Harvard alum, Silverglate, the co-author of Shadow University, foresaw today’s campus issues long before most. Please see his website here.

WSJ | Harvard Professor Hankins

Professor Hankins argues that politicization and lower standards jeopardize Harvard’s standing as a great research institution.

Sam Lessin ‘05 is running as a petition candidate for Overseer. Signatures due 1/31/24.

Medium

Harvard first year Theo Nobel writes a powerful public letter to the Corporation sharing his “recommendations for establishing a framework for free speech that protects all students and advances our collective education” Kudos to Tobel for identifying the core tenets of a university committed to the search for truth and his courage in asking the Corporation to do its job—“The power of repairing our fragmented community now lies in your hands.”

Newsweek

HLS ‘86 alum Winkfield Twyman, Jr, argues, “No one in good faith should defend President Gay because she is the first Black president of Harvard. Even if you don't agree with me that our racial struggle is in our past, someone who has targeted Black male professors has waived any benefit of the "first Black" defense.”

Quillette

Former HMS Dean, CAFH Co-President, and current Harvard professor Jeffrey Flier explains how “reaction to antisemitism on campus uncovered a double standard with regard to speech policies, and along with it, a broader web of inadequately interrogated campus policies and culture that are detrimental to the mission of universities to discover and disseminate truth” and puts forth a reform plan.

A new constitution has been proposed for the University of Pennsylvania following the 10/7 testimony of its former president. Members of the Harvard faculty, among nearly 2,000 others, have signed in support thus far.

Boston Globe

Harvard Professor, Harvard alum, and Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard Co-President, Steven Pinker, provides a 5-point plan for Harvard and other universities. “For universities to have a leg to stand on when they try to stand on principle, they must embark on a long-term plan to undo the damage they have inflicted on themselves.”

Crimson

In the wake of the student groups’ letter blaming Israel for the 10/7 Hama attacks, Professors Pinker and Flier offer clear assessment of the ramifications of free speech.

Salient

To our knowledge, the Harvard Salient was the first Harvard group to condemn the 10/8 student letter blaming Israel for the Hamas attacks. They wrote immediately, without fear, moral confusion, or equivocation.

View the full lecture here. On September 20th, Professor Hall, co-president of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, delivered a lecture on free speech. Professor Danielle Allen, delivered a response.

Harvard is again being sued, this time by a black and Latino group. Their lawsuit claims Harvard’s legacy admission practice violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act. There is no evidence cited that legacy admits are less qualified academically or otherwise, or that minority applicants would benefit should legacy preferences be abolished. The suit also challenges donor-related preferences.

Tablet

An important read on academic freedom by Carole Hooven, Harvard evolutionary biologist and author of T: The Story of Testosterone, who is on leave from Harvard after being ostracized for claiming there is a male/female biological binary. “It should not be too much to ask that they [department chairs and presidents] firmly hold the line between ignorance and knowledge, between subjective and objective, between our feelings and the facts.”

Harvard Magazine

An important read on free discourse at Harvard with a focus on the new Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard and mention of a University-supported Intellectual Vitality Committee. The piece details efforts to ensure intellectual vitality is both supported and ingrained in an institution dedicated to the pursuit of truth.

Heterodox STEM

Harvard alumnus Dorian Abbot (AB 04, SM 04, PHD 08) outlines “practical solutions to the threat to free inquiry at universities” that need to be enforced by by faculty working together with students, alumni, journalists, and politicians.

Crimson

On the eve of his retirement, an opinion piece by Harvey C. Mansfield ’53, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard. “Is anything lost by being woke? Yes, let me suggest there is…”

Free Black Thought

Harvard alumnus Justin Suran (AB 91) pens a piece for Free Black Thought on the history of chattel slavery. A historical piece adding depth to understanding slavery on a global scale.

Launched in March 2023, the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard is a faculty-led organization dedicated to promoting free inquiry, intellectual diversity, and civil discourse at Harvard University. Its more than 120 faculty members [at present] represent dozens of departments and every one of Harvard’s schools.

Crimson

The Crimson reports on an important new initiative facilitated by the dean of Harvard College— “For nearly two years, Khurana has facilitated an ‘Intellectual Vitality Committee’ comprised of Harvard undergraduates, faculty, and alumni. The group has quietly convened to discuss what they see as a lack of free idea exchange at the College.”

Bloomberg

In-keeping with our 2022 letter to the presidential search committee, the author warns, “At a time when the world is confronted with dark clouds of misinformation from both foreign autocracies and click-mad social media platforms, American universities need to demonstrate beyond doubt that they are on the side of light and truth…. The best news may be…[around] freedom of speech…[including] a new faculty-led organization at Harvard [that] has vowed to defend academic freedom and civil discourse.”