In late May, when Harvard adopted the recommendation of its Institutional Voice Working Group—that the University and its leaders should not make official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the core academic functions of research, teaching, and learning—many questions remained about how exactly the policy applies. Now, guidance posted by the provost’s office, in the form of frequently asked questions with answers, outlines the scope of institutional neutrality principles in detail—and makes clear that they are intended to be widely applicable, across Harvard’s leadership and in terms of allowable statements and actions.
Who is covered. The principles, according to the FAQ, “apply to anyone who serves in an administrative or academic leadership role representing the University or its constituent parts”—from the president, provost, and deans (of faculties, schools, divisions, and Houses) through other senior administrators, department chairs, and directors of programs, centers, institutes, and clinics. In other words, “the Institutional Voice Principles encourage restraint by all holding administrative or academic leadership positions” (emphasis added).
When the principles apply. For that broad cohort, “any statements by a University leader (in their official capacity) [emphasis added] are considered as official statements”: formal remarks, written communications, or communications issues through Harvard channels by someone speaking on behalf of the University or one of its units. Moreover, the highest officers are held to the highest standard:
Presidents, Provosts, Vice Presidents, and Deans (including Deans of Faculties, Schools, Divisions, or Houses, as well as Vice, Deputy, Associate, and Assistant Provosts, and Deans) should presume they will be understood to be speaking in their official capacities because it is difficult for members of our community or the public to differentiate whether they are acting in a personal or an official capacity when they speak. As such, the Institutional Voice Principles encourage particular restraint by those holding such administrative or academic leadership positions.
When leaders can speak on their own behalf. Given these broad expectations, that University personnel in positions of responsibility will exercise restraint, the FAQ specifies that when they serve “as academics with field expertise,” the principles don’t preclude them from “offering their substantive views in their area of academic expertise,” so long as they carefully identify that they are speaking as individuals, not on behalf of the University. That means that academics who take on administrative or leadership roles continue to exercise their rights to function in their academic capacity, even though their expertise—the FAQ lists as examples climate, health, human rights, gender, race, and other fields—“will often be implicated by publicly salient events.” The distinction between institutional and individual roles must be carefully maintained, for example, when a program or center leader posts a statement on an associated website, blog, or newsletter.
What issues are considered core to the University’s mission. Institutional neutrality is not only limiting: as the FAQ states, “University leaders…have a responsibility to speak to issues that directly affect the University’s core function.” That expectation “goes to questions that touch the University’s work as an institution of higher learning, including admissions, faculty hiring, curriculum, protection of academic freedom, or the importance of public support for academic research. This would have included, for example, matters such as the recent admissions litigation or the impact of the federal travel ban on students and faculty, matters plainly within the core function of the University.” (The policy does not specify who should address such matters.)
As examples of what not to do, University leaders “should avoid issuing substantive statements that advocate for a particular policy position unrelated to the University’s core function,” such as “the School of Public Health’s issuing an official endorsement or opposition to the enactment of the Affordable Care Act or the Economics Department’s issuing a statement articulating a departmental position on monetary policy or tax cuts.”
Similarly, the leadership should remain mute on natural disasters or “acts of mass violence or other events capturing significant attention” unless they explicitly raise issues concerning core academic functions. As a rationale, the FAQ notes, “Addressing some necessarily excludes others, and it is not possible for leaders to address all.” Obviously, in cases where students, staff, or faculty are affected, leaders should “identify ways for those with proximity” to such community members to “provide resources and support directly.” And leaders are not precluded from attending memorial events to show support for affected community members.
(In the context of last October 7, had the policy as detailed here been in place, University leaders would have been guided not to speak in an official capacity about the Hamas assault on Israel or Israel’s military response in Gaza. The student groups that initially issued a statement in support of Gaza were, of course, not speaking for Harvard—but in the ensuing wave of condemnation, many critics demanded that the University and its leaders denounce the students’ speech and/or emphasize that the student groups did not speak for the institution. It is not exactly clear what guidance the new FAQ language would provide under similar circumstances in the future.)
Ways to provide “supporting dialogue and discussion on issues of public importance.” The FAQ makes clear that schools and the University can and ought to develop channels to discuss public issues “that concern the community and might, in the past, have been the subject of public statements.” Such efforts are consistent with the principles and reinforce “the role of an academic institution in fostering discussion, debate, and dialogue”—but in doing so, schools should take care “to represent diverse viewpoints.” Individual faculty members, as individuals, of course “should be encouraged to contribute their expertise and perspective” to discussions on matters of public importance. Nothing in the institutional voice principles constrains their academic freedom to do so.
What actions constitute statements under the institutional voice principles. Certain actions by University leaders are “necessarily and inherently expressive”: flying a flag, making a salute, signing a petition. Notably, “flying a flag of a country at war from a University building is a statement,” where flying a flag to honor a visiting head of state is not—and thus the decision of President emeritus Lawrence S. Bacow to show support that way for Ukraine is now considered off limits. (Flying Ukraine’s flag in 2022, but not Israel’s flag in late 2023, became a point of controversy when President Claudine Gay was grilled by members of a U.S. House of Representatives committee last December.)
Other dilemmas. Given that programs, centers, institutes, and clinics are involved in translating research into action, how are they to proceed? With due caution: “Such units may engage in their ordinary academic work, including policy advocacy and recommendations in white papers or reports, but this work should reflect or link to evidence-based academic work or reasoning that is reflective of academic expertise, rather than relying on mere assertions or on statements based on appeals to the views of other groups.”
Student organizations, the source of much of last year’s crises, “are subject to the policies of the schools at which they are based.”
And for anyone active on social media, the guidance errs on the side of caution:
Material disseminated by official social media accounts, websites, email announcements, and other electronic communications channels of the University and its Schools or units are considered to be institutional products or statements. Consequently, care should be taken to avoid using them as avenues for issuing statements on matters that fall outside the University’s core function. Depending on how they are framed, most reposts of social media content are now understood to convey a statement either for or against the position taken in the original post.
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The institutional voice standards were put in place to focus University community members’ attention on the proper bounds of and role for an academic institution doing academic work, and to assure that statements from on high do not inhibit or skew expression of differing perspectives and ideas. Now, the challenge to the community clearly will be navigating the new standards, as detailed, without letting them, counterintuitively, inhibit the very discourse and debate they were intended to preserve.
