Garber Is Right: The Ad Board Is the Problem.

As it turns out, a 325 page report can illuminate a lot about administrative dysfunction.

Last month, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce released a shiny new report detailing a slew of tense internal post-Oct. 7 communications. During the drama, top administrators debated how to respond to the Oct. 7 attacks, tensely clashed with one another, and rued their lack of control over student disciplinary proceedings.

The report reveals that, despite the fracas, at least one committee at Harvard is functioning as intended. The Ad Boards successfully resisted pressure from University officials, maintaining their autonomy in a politically charged environment.

After the College Ad Board declined to punish participants in the 24-hour occupation of University Hall beyond an admonishment, Senior Corporation Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 said that the Corporation remained intensely dissatisfied with the ruling, citing an “uneven enforcement of the rules.”

As the saga continued, Corporation members continued to find themselves frustrated with their lack of control. “The Ad Boards are the problem,” University President Alan M. Garber ’76 said.

Pritzker’s and Garber’s frustrations demonstrate exactly why the Ad Board must remain independent from administrators.

The Board exists to serve our students and uphold Harvard’s core values — not to cave to the will of external political and monetary pressures. In a world of intense congressional and donor scrutiny on Harvard, we understand the urge to pacify critics with stringent punishment of pro-Palestine protesters. But student discipline should not be determined by political pressures or outsider influence; it should advance the goal of “supporting student growth,” the Ad Board’s stated central purpose.

Congress’ new report only further demonstrates the importance of Ad Board autonomy.

For one, it reveals that Pritzker interpreted the phrase “from the river to the sea” as a blatant call for the “annihilation of the Jewish state and Jews” — an oversimplification of its meaning, as Garber noted himself. Pritzker’s strident language belies a lack of nuance that reveals why disciplinary hearings should proceed without influence from Harvard’s higher-ups.

Furthermore, interviews with Prtizker in the report indicate that Garber assured Pritzker his deal with the encampment participants did not preclude harsh punishments for their behavior. At the very same time, he promised students their cases would be decided in accordance with precedent, an implicit signal of forbearance. This two-faced approach is hardly befitting someone charged with student disciplinary matters.

Despite the Ad Board’s initial harsh handling of the encampment, we are grateful that student protesters ultimately faced minimal punishments — an approach that correctly considers the value of protest on a college campus.

But insulating the organization from improper meddling isn’t enough. The Ad Board — primarily staffed with a smorgasbord of non-tenure staff and administrators — has a secondary problem: Professors don’t want to serve on it.

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra has the right idea. Recruiting tenured professors into the Ad Board would benefit a committee that has seen itself increasingly pushed into the spotlight.

Faculty themselves must recognize the critical role that they play in maintaining a fair disciplinary process. Until then, the Ad Board must continue making its decisions — right or wrong — independently.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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