Harvard Will Review Discrimination Policies to Better Protect Academic Freedom

Updated October 1, 2024, at 3:36 p.m.

Harvard will review its discrimination, bullying, and harassment policies to better protect academic freedom, following a series of recommendations from the University’s Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue working group.

Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 and Provost John F. Manning ’82 wrote in a joint statement on Tuesday that they “accept the recommendations of the Working Group and look forward to working with the deans, faculty, staff, and students to put them into practice.”

The working group, which was co-chaired by Government professor Eric Beerbohm and Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin, was formed by University President Alan M. Garber ’76 in April as part of his effort to encourage dialogue and civil disagreement after the Israel-Hamas war bitterly divided Harvard’s campus last year.

In an interview, Brown-Nagin stressed that the report’s recommendations are not compulsory and intend to serve as proposals that individual schools can choose to adopt.

“It needs to be understood that this report is not binding in the sense of mandate,” Brown-Nagin said.

The report specifically asked schools across the University to consider adopting a non-attribution policy such as the Chatham House Rule, which would allow people to repeat information from a discussion without identifying the speaker.

Similar policies are already in place at the Harvard Business School, Harvard Kennedy School, and Harvard Law School.

The working group’s report also called for a review of the University’s discrimination, bullying, and harassment policies, citing the “potential chilling impact of investigations.”

“Students worried that classroom debates could trigger complaints and investigations; consequently, they choose to self-censor rather than debate charged issues,” the report stated. “Instructors reported special concern about the delegation of fact-finding or decision-making to persons who are unfamiliar with the principles of academic freedom that should guide faculty-student interactions.”

The report also urged schools to consider developing a training program on classroom discussions for freshmen, as well as to consider adopting policies that encourage responsible social media use and reward instructors for encouraging debate on controversial topics based on the group’s report, written after listening sessions with more than 600 affiliates.

Garber and Manning wrote in their University-wide message on Tuesday that the full implementation of the report’s recommendations “will undoubtedly take time.”

“This report points the way,” they added.

Many of the recommendations put forward by the working group involving curriculum adjustments and classroom norms will most likely need to be greenlit by the faculty and individual school deans before being implemented.

The recommendations issued by the working group represent the latest effort by Garber in his mission to reform Harvard in the wake of its most destabilizing period in decades. His administration has already adopted a policy that instructs the University to not issue statements on current events and placed new restrictions on campus protest.

Government professor Eric Beerbohm and Radcliffe Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin, co-chairs of the University’s Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue working group, exit the Harvard Art Museums after the first FAS meeting of the Fall 2024 semester. By Frank S. Zhou

Beerbohm said in an interview that the working group’s recommendations “piggyback” off of the University’s modified institutional neutrality statement.

“This describes the way in which we as a community can have a range of voices that are amplified, as opposed to a single institutional voice,” Beerbohm said, referring to the open inquiry report.

The presidential task forces on combating antisemitism and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias, which Garber formed just days into his tenure as interim president, are also expected to release their final recommendations later this semester.

Beerbohm said that the policies are intended to “give students permission and give faculty permission — this is a joint effort — to speak their mind because they know that others will treat them as trying to get it right.”

The report also revealed the results of a University-wide classroom climate survey. Out of 5,395 student respondents, 45 percent were hesitant to share their views on controversial topics in class and 38 percent felt equally hesitant to express views outside of class.

Surveyed students said their concerns stemmed from fears about reputational risk, harassment on social media, and judgment from classmates. Some students said they were worried that expressing an opinion contrary to their professor could have an impact on their grade. The widespread use of anonymous platforms such as Sidechat and messaging groups like GroupMe also led students to self-censor, according to the report.

“For them, the potential reputational risk of speaking out appeared to outweigh any intellectual benefits that might be gained from debating difficult subjects or disagreeing with peers’ presumed viewpoints,” the report stated.

The group also found that while 59 percent of instructors reported being comfortable with pursuing controversial research, “only 49 percent reported that they are comfortable leading a classroom discussion about controversial issues,” frequently citing fear of professional retaliation, negative teaching evaluations, and of being recorded while teaching.

The group suggested rewarding instructors “skilled in navigating controversial topics” and wrote that faculty should “communicate their commitment to open inquiry” with students.

Beerbohm said that a new question on the Q-guide, the University’s course evaluation platform, that asks students to rate their comfort expressing views on controversial topics will allow administrators to evaluate instructors on their commitment to fostering debate on controversial topics.

“We hope that that can be used to actually reward those who stick their necks out in this way,” Beerbohm said.

While the report suggested several possible policies, including policies advising instructors not to share their perspectives on issues and advising students to avoid sharing personal experiences on issues, they did not make specific recommendations on those topics.

“It is important and it is expected, for the sake of learners, that faculty teach and consider a broad spectrum of views,” Brown-Nagin said.

Beerbohm said that “one way I judge my success is if students can’t tell what I think.”

The working group co-chairs also declined to say whether they supported intentionally hiring more ideologically diverse faculty.

“This problem is much, much bigger than politics,” Brown-Nagin said.

“There’s variance across our schools, disciplines, and individuals in terms of how capable they actually are in doing what we’re asking of them in this report,” she added.

The report includes a suggestion to assign participants to arguments during discussions and conduct anonymous polling to “establish that individuals may enter classroom discussions with different perspectives on contentious issues.”

In an interview with the Harvard Gazette, a University-run publication, Brown-Nagin said that during listening sessions, “some of the most gripping stories came from Israeli and Jewish students whose attempts to engage in dialogue were rejected by other students, who have disavowed talking to Zionists.”

“We also heard from Arab, Muslim and Palestinian students who had been called ‘terrorists’ on the assumption that anyone who cares about or stands up for the rights of the Palestinian people supports terrorism,” she added.

Still, Brown-Nagin warned that the report is just the first step in addressing issues surrounding free speech and academic freedom,

“One point I do want to make very emphatically is that law and policy will not save us,” Brown-Nagin said.

“We have to be committed as individual members of this community to a better community, to a livelier exchange of ideas,” she added.

Clarification: October 1, 2024

This article has been updated to clarify that the working group’s recommendations are not binding.

—Staff writer Emma H. Haidar can be reached at emma.haidar@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @HaidarEmma.

—Staff writer Cam E. Kettles can be reached at cam.kettles@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cam_kettles or on Threads @camkettles.