By Frank S. ZhouHarvard began 2024 in an unprecedented crisis. With a newly-installed president and some regained stability, the University is preparing for a new round of political battles ahead.
Just two days into the new year, former Harvard President Claudine Gay — the University’s first Black president — resigned after three months of fierce public outcry over Harvard’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, campus protests, allegations of plagiarism, and a damaging testimony before Congress.
Gay’s resignation sent shockwaves across campus, with many affiliates grieving the abrupt end of a historic presidency. Top University officials were faced with the task of rebuilding.
The Harvard Corporation named then-Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 as Gay’s interim successor. A long-time administrator who was widely seen as a contender for president in 2017, Garber was tasked with restoring confidence in the University’s leadership, calming campus tensions, and getting Harvard out of national headlines.
Early in his interim tenure, Garber quickly formed task forces to address antisemitism and anti-Arab bias, rewrote campus protest rules to restrict indoor spaces, and appointed John F. Manning ’82, then-dean of Harvard Law School, as interim provost.
He later committed Harvard to a modified institutional neutrality statement, pledging not to make statements on public policy issues not directly related to Harvard’s governance.
Garber also embarked on a tour of diplomacy with politicians, Harvard alumni, and donors in the spring — an attempt to address lingering concerns over protest discipline and academic freedom.
On a spring break trip to London and Miami, Garber expressed concern that donations to Harvard could plunge as a result of the turmoil. With donors, Harvard’s fundraising officers had adopted a “listening mode” strategy to hear concerns instead of asking for contributions. Garber’s concerns were well-founded. Donations fell by 14 percent in fiscal year 2024, the University’s October financial report revealed.
Seven months after Gay’s resignation, the Corporation installed Garber as Harvard’s 31st president — delaying the next presidential search by two years. Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 announced that Garber would serve until the end of the 2026-27 academic year. Garber tapped Manning as permanent provost days later.
With less than three years left in office, Garber has promised more reforms. But as the face of Harvard, he will also be expected to deescalate threats from Republicans to revoke federal funding under a second Trump administration.
—Dhruv T. Patel, Crimson Staff Writer
By Jina H. ChoeIn April, amid a wave of similar demonstrations nationwide, pro-Palestine Harvard students established a 20-day encampment in Harvard Yard to protest the war in Gaza and demand the University divest from Israel.
As Harvard’s leaders sought to end the encampment on their own doorstep, they watched crises play out on other campuses. Police crackdowns elsewhere led to mass arrests and outraged students and faculty. But negotiated resolutions provoked backlash from donors and politicians.
Though they ultimately did not resort to police force, administrators issued an escalating series of threats before eventually placing protestors on involuntary leaves of absence.
After University President Alan M. Garber ’76 struck a deal with Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine organizers to end the encampment, the Harvard College Administrative Board hit protestors with penalties and prevented 13 seniors from graduating in May.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences overwhelmingly voted to allow the 13 seniors to graduate anyway in an assertion of authority over the Ad Board. But the Harvard Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — quickly shot down the FAS’ effort.
Anger at the decision cast a shadow over Commencement, and more than 1,000 students, faculty, and attendees walked out. HOOP organizers subsequently hosted a mock commencement ceremony to honor the seniors barred from graduating.
Over the summer, the Ad Board dropped its suspensions and lightened probation penalties at the Faculty Council’s recommendation. The Corporation granted diplomas to 11 of the 13 seniors.
But Garber — despite meeting with HOOP organizers — has not ceded an inch to their core demands.
—Veronica H. Paulus, Crimson Staff Writer
By Julian J. GiordanoTop Harvard officials spent 2024 contending with an increasingly hostile environment in Washington — including federal lawsuits and a yearlong probe in Congress.
After Claudine Gay testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in a December 2023 hearing, the committee opened an investigation into Harvard, vowing to hold administrators accountable for what the committee saw as a failure to respond to antisemitism on campus.
The probe was later expanded to include five other House committees, each tasked with evaluating whether Harvard is still eligible for the more than $650 million dollars in federal funding it receives each year.
The committee subpoenaed Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76, Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81, and Harvard Management Company CEO N.P. “Narv” Narvekar in February for a trove of internal documents and communications, including disciplinary records and meeting minutes.
Under subpoena and amid threats from House Republicans to revoke Harvard’s accreditation and federal funding, Harvard sent tens of thousands of pages of administrators’ internal records and communications to Congress.
In two reports compiled from the documents and a transcribed interview with Pritzker, the Committee on Education and the Workforce revealed tension between Gay and her antisemitism advisory group, disagreements over the wording of Harvard’s initial Oct. 9 statement, and a strong desire among top officials to impose harsher sanctions on protesters.
Ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, Congress suggested a series of punitive actions, including tax penalties, endowment tax hikes, and federal funding cuts.
While Garber and Pritzker have both spoken publicly about Harvard’s need for federal funding, they have not responded directly to the funding threats. Garber has flown to Washington several times to meet with members of Congress, but calls to punish Harvard only grew over the course of 2024.
—Akshaya Ravi, Crimson Staff Writer
By Ellen P. CassidyFor months, Harvard’s faculty watched from the wings as the University’s central administration stumbled from one crisis to the next. Now, Harvard’s professors are taking center stage, pushing to establish a University-wide faculty senate that would grant them greater say in Harvard’s governance.
In an April memo, a group of prominent professors launched the campaign for a faculty senate. The 18-member cohort argued that Harvard’s current administrative structure fails to systematically incorporate faculty perspectives. And it called for Harvard’s faculties to select delegates for a planning body tasked with designing the faculty senate.
The proposal sparked vigorous debate among Harvard’s professors. Though many supported the initiative, others criticized it as overly reactive to recent controversies, the wrong way to reform the University’s governance, or a risk to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ status as Harvard’s core faculty.
Still, one by one, Harvard’s faculties have voted — often overwhelmingly — in favor of sending delegates to the planning body. The Harvard Business School and Harvard Medical School are the only faculties that have yet to vote on the proposal.
What the faculty senate will look like remains an open question, one its proponents say the planning body is designed to answer.
—William C. Mao, Crimson Staff Writer
By Miles J. HerszenhornPlagiarism allegations rocked Harvard this year. What began as a debate over citation practices and academic originality quickly snowballed into a right-wing offensive against elite universities.
In December 2023, anonymous complaints accused then-Harvard President Claudine Gay of improper citation in her Ph.D. dissertation and scholarly work. The allegations surfaced as backlash against Gay’s congressional testimony and statements following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks led to calls for her resignation.
While an internal Harvard review found citation errors but no misconduct in Gay’s work, the controversy damaged her credibility and dogged her until her resignation. As a Black woman in a high-profile leadership role, Gay became a proxy for broader attacks by conservative activists such as Christopher F. Rufo against diversity, equity, and inclusion programming on university campuses.
The scandal also rattled the University’s top brass: The Harvard Corporation, which had selected Gay without fully reviewing her scholarship, came under fire for its presidential selection process.
By March, anonymous complaints had targeted three more Black women scholars and administrators at Harvard.
Though scholars increasingly dismissed the allegations as overblown, Rufo and other conservative activists continued to amplify the claims — using citation disputes to fuel their campaign in the culture war.
—Saketh Sundar, Crimson Staff Writer
By Julian J. GiordanoInternal tensions at the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative — the University’s $100 million attempt to reckon with its ties to slavery — erupted into public view in 2024.
The co-chairs of the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery Initiative Memorial Project committee resigned from their positions in May, alleging in a resignation letter that they were encouraged to “delay and dilute” Harvard’s engagement with the descendants of enslaved people. Less than a month later, the initiative’s executive director, Roeshana Moore-Evans, also resigned.
A Crimson investigation revealed long-running frustrations within the Legacy of Slavery initiative. Current and former employees accused administrators, including Vice Provost for Special Projects Sara N. Bleich, of prioritizing the initiative’s public image while trying to limit the scope of its efforts to unearth Harvard’s links with slavery.
The Crimson found that the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program identified more than 300 individuals enslaved by University affiliates — significantly more than the group disclosed in its landmark 2022 report.
Though the program also identified over 100 living descendants of people enslaved by Harvard affiliates, the University has not yet begun outreach. But work at peer institutions may be a guide.
In September, the initiative announced new co-chairs for the memorial committee and the formation of an advisory council.
—Neeraja S. Kumar, Crimson Staff Writer
By Frank S. Zhou2024 was yet another year of leadership turnover across Harvard’s schools, spurred in part by changes in Massachusetts Hall.
At Harvard Law School, former HLS Deputy Dean John C.P. Goldberg became interim HLS dean in March after John F. Manning ’82 was tapped for interim University provost. Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76’s decision to permanently appoint Manning as provost triggered a search for the next permanent dean of the law school.
After an 11-year tenure marked by fights over final clubs and pro-Palestine protests, Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana will step down at the end of the 2024-25 academic year. His successor will be appointed in spring 2025.
At the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Nonie K. Lesaux is also serving as interim dean while the University searches for Bridget Terry Long’s successor — the third ongoing dean search to carry into 2025.
Stanford political scientist Jeremy M. Weinstein was tapped to lead the Harvard Kennedy School in April following a seven-month search for Douglas W. Elmendorf’s replacement. Early in his tenure, Weinstein made several administrative appointments and instituted a faculty hiring freeze for the academic year.
In the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Philosophy professor Sean D. Kelly assumed the role of Arts and Humanities divisional dean, while neuroscientist and Biology professor Jeff W. Lichtman took over as Sciences divisional dean. Both took office in July.
The University announced in July that former U.S. Department of Defense General Counsel Jennifer M. O’Connor ’87 will lead Harvard’s legal arm amid several ongoing court battles. Reisha Williams was also appointed as the new College Title IX Program Officer, the fourth person to serve in the role since its creation in 2015.
—Xinni (Sunshine) Chen, Crimson Staff Writer
By Amanda Y. SuAs voters across Cambridge and the United States flocked to the polls, Harvard found itself in the middle of a hotly-contested election season.
In December 2023, Evan C. MacKay ’19 — a former president of the union representing Harvard’s graduate students — launched a left-wing primary challenge to incumbent State Representative Marjorie C. Decker, whose state legislative district encompasses all of Harvard’s Cambridge campus.
Though outspent and considered an underdog, MacKay declared an upset win on election night in September when preliminary tallies showed their campaign ahead by 40 votes — only for additional ballots, and a recount, to land Decker with a 41-vote victory instead. The race was Decker’s closest after a quarter century in Cambridge politics and a decade at the State House.
The local race, however, was largely overshadowed by the impact of the presidential race on Harvard’s campus. Students watched Donald Trump’s swing state romp from dormitories and viewing parties, while Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) easily won a third term.
Reactions to Trump’s victory ranged across campus: professors cancelled classes, conservative students cheered, and international students expressed concern over the president-elect’s rhetoric on immigration. And, as inauguration day nears, University leadership continues to mull how, exactly, Harvard can navigate a second Trump administration — one that may be more hostile to elite higher education than ever before.
— Matan H. Josephy, Crimson Staff Writer
By Truong L. NguyenConflict and uncertainty among Cambridge Public Schools parents and educators culminated in former CPS Superintendent Victoria L. Greer’s departure from the district.
Criticisms of Greer’s tenure originated after a group of parents accused the Graham & Parks School principal of communicating poorly and fostering a “toxic workplace.” Parents and School Committee members questioned Greer’s role in the hiring process.
These criticisms were compounded by February’s climate survey results, which found widespread dissatisfaction among CPS staff.
While a July 2023 evaluation rated Greer’s performance as “needs improvement.” Greer’s midpoint evaluation scheduled for March was postponed twice while the committee renegotiated her contract offer.
The School Committee asked Greer to voluntarily resign after two private executive sessions in April. The committee remained publicly silent until May, when they voted to give Greer 90 days’ notice to resign.
Parents’ reactions ranged from relief to frustration, with some pointing out that Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System scores rebounded and chronic absenteeism decreased under Greer’s tenure.
As CPS searches for Greer’s permanent successor, CPS Chief Operating Officer David Murphy has been appointed interim superintendent while parents call for a broad and transparent search process.
—Samantha D. Wu, Crimson Staff Writer
By Santiago A. SaldivarThis year offered the first signs of how the Supreme Court’s rejection of affirmative action will change Harvard’s admissions process — and the demographics of its student population.
The Supreme Court ruled against the use of race as a factor in college admissions processes in June 2023. In the past year and a half, Harvard made efforts to change both its admissions process and the way in which it shares information about its incoming class.
Immediately following the Supreme Court’s decision, Harvard reworked its application for the Class of 2028 — shifting from a longform essay to five shorter prompts as part of the application.
The College announced in April that the admissions office would begin requiring standardized test scores from applicants to the Class of 2029, undercutting Harvard’s previous commitment to remain test-optional through the Class of 2030.
Harvard’s Class of 2028 — the first college class affected by the Supreme Court’s rejection of affirmative action in admissions — saw a 4 percentage point drop in admitted Black students. At Harvard Law School, the number of Black students enrolled fell by more than half, from 43 students last year to 19.
Instead of releasing demographic data on the Class of 2028 in the spring like usual, Harvard College released its data in September. The College also altered its reporting practices this year, adding a veil of confusion to the data release.
In November, Harvard also announced it would stop releasing data on regular and early decision days — a break from a nearly 70-year precedent — and instead release all data at once in the fall.
—Elyse C. Goncalves, Crimson Staff Writer