Harvard’s Mental Health System Is Dehumanizing

If you or someone you know needs help at Harvard, contact Counseling and Mental Health Services at (617) 495-2042 or the Harvard University Police Department at (617) 495-1212. Several peer counseling groups offer confidential peer conversations. Learn more here.

You can contact a University Chaplain to speak one-on-one at chaplains@harvard.edu or here.

You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

Last Thursday, a jury found Harvard Counseling and Mental Health Services employee Melanie G. Northrop not liable in a civil case pertaining to the suicide of Luke Z. Tang ’18. I am not a member of Tang’s family, nor did I ever know him. I am neither a legal scholar nor a psychiatrist. I cannot pretend to ascertain whether the decision was just.

Instead, I urge us to seize this moment to reflect on how Harvard’s mental health system has failed — and continues to fail — its students. In turn, we must demand reform to reduce the chances of such a tragedy ever happening again.

At the center of Harvard’s mental health system is an ethos of distrust, paternalism, and surveillance. This ethos is exemplified by Tang’s case.

Tang attempted suicide on April 11, 2015, while a first-year. His attempt was followed by a seven-day hospitalization at McLean Hospital — a teaching hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Several weeks later, a contract was established between Harvard and Tang, with Tang’s signature a prerequisite for his return to campus.

This contract required Tang comply with the recommendations from his treatment providers (including prescribed medications), prohibited him from changing this medication regimen without permission, mandated he submit to psychiatric evaluation upon the request of any “College official,” and permitted the College to contact his parents if any terms of the contract were violated. Failure to comply would constitute a threat to Tang’s continued enrollment at Harvard.

Tang tried to modify these terms prior to signing. He was refused.

He died by suicide on Sept. 12, 2015.

There is a simple explanation why Harvard’s “care” is centered around contractual obligations. It seems students believed to pose an imminent threat to themselves are, in the eyes of our administration, a legal and public relations liability. Harvard does not wish to be the school known for its student suicides, nor does it wish to spend its (over $50 billion) endowment on lawsuits and settlements.

While the University’s financial and reputational motives are understandable, these motives must not affect their approach to mental health care — not if it comes at the cost of its students’ wellbeing. Sadly, it’s possible that the terms of Tang’s contract and the context surrounding its signing had an adverse effect on his health.

The fact that his contract was non-negotiable negated Tang’s personhood, denying him autonomy with respect to his care. The only choice he had, in fact, was to comply or unenroll.

The terms of the contract were similarly suffocating.

To encourage treatment is one thing; to mandate it under threat of removal is another. The contract’s terms suggest a deep distrust of students struggling with mental health issues. This approach sends a clear message: Harvard doesn’t trust you.

Preventing students from changing their medication regimen without consent of their treatment team is a clear infringement on bodily autonomy. Responses to psychiatric medication are varied and can range from dangerous side effects to unwanted changes in mood that may be justified as a “necessary evil” by the wrong provider. Harvard’s arrangement amounts to a forced administration of medication to students.

In broadening the scope of who could demand a psychiatric evaluation of Tang to the highly ambiguous category of “College officials,” Harvard unfairly subjected a student to undue scrutiny and observation. When any College official has this power, there are few safe authorities to turn to without risking removal from the College. To speak about one’s experiences becomes dangerous.

By reserving the right to contact students’ parents about their mental health, the administration overstepped its authority, meddling in family affairs. Such a reach can be particularly insidious for students with unsupportive parents, or worse — as is the case for many queer students with unaccepting families — it can be a blatant violation of student privacy. We may be young, but we are still adults, and we have the right to decide who is involved in our care.

When Harvard treats students as liabilities, it sends a clear signal to those who need care: There may not be a place for you here.

Harvard’s current system reinforces stigma around mental health; it must be reengineered to actively combat this stigma. If the University truly cares about mental health, it must begin to see its students as full persons — persons with dignity, persons capable of reasoning and decision-making, and persons who have a right to bodily autonomy.

Resistance to change renders Harvard complicit in today’s mental health crisis.

Allison P. Farrell ’26, a Crimson Editorial Editor, is a Philosophy Concentrator in Leverett House.

Correction: May 03, 2024

The language of this op-ed has been corrected to reflect that the court case regarding Harvard Counseling and Mental Health Services employee Melanie G. Northrop was civil in nature, not criminal.