The agenda for the April 1 Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) meeting was routine: voting on letter-grading of some required undergraduate courses, a program name change, an in camera discussion of a committee report on student discipline. But under the anything-but-routine circumstances—the Trump administration’s move to review billions of dollars in funding to Harvard; the detention by immigration officers and move to deport a Tufts graduate student, apparently for pro-Palestinian speech, on a street near Cambridge; and administration responses to the challenges the University now faces (see below)—anxious faculty members engaged in tense, anguished discussion of the threats to teaching and research, and indeed to sustained academic freedom. Because these very real concerns now dominate attention at many peer research universities (Columbia, Penn, and Princeton have also been threatened with the loss of funding for failing to satisfy the new administration’s antisemitism and other orders)—at the expense of the wanted focus on teaching, learning, and scholarship—this report documents the faculty meeting remarks in detail. The issues are unlikely to go away soon, and the debate within Harvard will shape the community’s ability to coalesce in support of the University’s core academic values.
The “Review” of Harvard’s Funding
The meeting opened to an accompanying chorus of chants from a protest march in Tercentenary Theatre. It combined a pro-Palestinian demonstration, expressions of grave concern about the status of Harvard students vulnerable to the newly aggressive U.S. deportation policies and practices, and repudiations of two decisions: to remove the leadership of the Center For Middle Eastern Studies’ faculty leaders (see below) and to suspend the Divinity School’s Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative. (As subsequently reported, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee was put on probation and prohibited from hosting public events on campus until July for violating numerous rules on use of the campus, including deploying amplified sound and impeding access and movement around campus buildings.)
Dean Hopi Hoekstra began by commenting on the prior day’s announcement that the federal Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism would pursue “a comprehensive review of federal contracts and grants at Harvard University and its affiliates,” covering “more than $255.6 million in contracts between Harvard University, its affiliates, and the Federal Government” and purports to extend to “the more than $8.7 billion in multi-year grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates [presumably, the Medical School-affiliated hospitals] to ensure the University is in compliance with federal regulations, including its civil rights responsibilities.” The announcement contained no further details, and was unaccompanied, so far as anyone knows, by the results of any prior investigation of the allegations or even the details of the grants and contracts involved.
Hoekstra pointed out those limitations on what Harvard knows, and accordingly could shed little additional light on what might ensue: “I have no information on what this review will entail or how it will unfold.”
She did tell principal investigators (PIs) on federally funded research projects how FAS would respond if funds were frozen or canceled as a result of the review. (She said there are 505 PIs across FAS and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, with $179.2 million in federal grant and contract funds in fiscal year 2024; their work, she said, is “in service to the public good,” and also supports undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and research staff members.) Any cessation of funding would be reviewed within 30 days, to be followed by detailed guidance depending on the circumstances of each grant and each laboratory’s research. Until then, she said, work should proceed as normal.
The entire situation is “extraordinarily concerning,” Hoekstra acknowledged, and she and colleagues needed time to process the news. President Alan M. Garber is leading Harvard’s response to the government at the University level. Faculty members’ highest priority, she emphasized, should be protecting students’ academic progress. Provost John Manning, she added, will join the last regular faculty meeting, in early May, for an in camera discussion of these and other issues.
That left little more to say, until underlying concerns erupted during the question period.
The Center for Middle Eastern Studies
The Crimson reported on March 28 that David M. Cutler, FAS’s interim dean of social science, had dismissed Koc professor of Turkish studies Cemal Kafadar and Danziger associate professor of history Rosie Bsheer from their roles as director and associate director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) at the end of the academic year. The center has come under criticism from the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance, and others, for presenting programs that critics say are unbalanced, for failing to present Israel’s perspective on issues, and/or for being openly antisemitic.
As a matter of routine, FAS and Harvard do not comment on matters concerning personnel; that practice held here.
But faculty members can have their say in FAS meetings. The first questioner who addressed Hoekstra described the change at CMES as “a radical move against colleagues highly respected by their colleagues.” He asked what the consequences would be for academic freedom at Harvard—and, pointedly, what FAS professors could expect from their decanal leadership in terms of protecting academic freedom and resisting external pressures that impinge on it. He described the CMES leadership change as a “serious attack” on academic freedom and asked to hear about the rationale and processes that produced that outcome.
Hoekstra said, plainly, “Appointments of academic leaders are among the most important decisions we make,” and thanked those who assumed the roles in departments, centers, programs, and institutes. She continued, levelly, “I very much take issue with how this decision has been characterized,” describing such decisions as complex and multifactorial, involving assessments of excellence in leadership and management skills, and guided by conversations with each affected community of faculty and students. In that light, she said, “I am confident that this was the right decision,” even though “the external environment makes a decision like this one especially hard.” With that, she welcomed faculty suggestions on CMES’s future and candidates for successor leaders.
Hoekstra then pivoted, to put the controversy in broader context, by raising the substance of a message she had sent to center directors on March 25. In it, citing the faculty’s determination to foster civil discourse and promote a classroom environment that supports the full, free exchange of ideas, she had sought “more detail about how the principles articulated in these reports are being implemented in FAS’s centers and institutes.” Accordingly, she asked the center directors to confer with their respective divisional deans “to discuss opportunities to promote a diversity of ideas and perspectives in more detail. I ask that you be prepared to discuss…(1) the range of programming, seminars, and other activities that you run, (2) the degree to which these activities currently meet our goals of diversity and exposure to different ideas perspectives and topics, (3) how you promote respectful dialogue across controversial topics, and (4) what changes, if any, the center institute you oversee will make in response to these reports.”
In the faculty meeting, she said that across FAS, engaging productively across diverse viewpoints is “a necessary precondition for academic excellence.” Acknowledging the academic centers’ important role in the academic ecosystem, she further observed that unlike departments, they are not subjected to regular review—an important mechanism for “reflection and self-study.” Drawing on her experience as an evolutionary biologist, she said, she wouldn’t “necessarily” engage in scholarly debate with a creationist; her work had progressed through vigorous discussions on the role of epigenetics in driving adaptation. The aim, she continued, was to assure that no one within the community feels excluded because of their academic perspective. “Academic freedom,” she said, is a “red line,” a necessary condition for the work of the University—in support of which FAS must uphold standards and rigor and entertain conversations about how to perform well.
Seen in that light, a review of the centers is unobjectionable: just good academic practice, to see to it that such units identify and pursue the best practices. Seen from the centers’ often independent perspective, such a request might seem annoying or burdensome, but not worse. But if seen in the light of the federal intrusion into Columbia’s affairs (demanding harsh oversight, at least, of Middle Eastern studies), and other recent Harvard decisions (at the Divinity School, and the School of Public Health’s reported decision to suspend a partnership with Birzeit University in the West Bank), some faculty members clearly interpreted Hoekstra’s initiative as part of a wider internal effort to appease political and other critics gunning for the University.
Freed professor of government Daniel Carpenter rose to put the issues in a broader intellectual perspective. If the University takes actions at the behest of the federal government that it knows to be illegal, at least procedurally (under threat of funding cuts, and without factual investigation and the opportunity for rebuttal), this is, indeed, capitulation or “anticipatory obligation.” In his view, the judgment that universities’ recent decisions represent capitulation to a hostile Trump administration are premature. And locally, the decision to change a center’s leadership is neither a sentence of academic receivership (the government’s demand at Columbia) nor a denial of academic freedom. The latter judgment, Carpenter said, reflects his understanding that academic freedom is attached to professorial duties and privileges, not to wider “auxiliary” offices such as serving as a dean or department chair or center director.
In that sense, Carpenter asked, “[I]f the University took on so critical an initiative as intellectual diversity and I…were to resist and say my department would have no part of it while I am chair, and I resisted to the point of intransigence, would you remove me from my auxiliary office? I hope, net of due process and a conversation, your answer would be yes.”
Hoekstra thanked him for the question and supporting materials, and restated her commitment to engaging in conversations across differing viewpoints as a fundamental condition of academic excellence.
When the conversation returned to these topics, a final questioner observed that the CMES leadership change, the public health school’s decision, and the Trump administration’s simultaneous pressure on institutions deemed insufficiently protective of Jewish students (and its determination to detain and deport foreign students who are deemed anti-Israel or pro-Hamas) seemed, all together, “a coincidence that is really hard to believe.” So, he asked again what had happened at CMES to prompt the change in leadership, and how that change could be consistent with FAS’s core values as Hoekstra had articulated them?
She paused over her answer before saying that it was difficult to respond fully because of the privacy inherent in making such decisions and the different information bearing on them available to her, as the decisionmaker, versus that available to outside observers. She restated her commitment to academic freedom as a “red line.”
Protecting Students
Other questions focused on genuine fears facing students, given immigration agents’ detention of Columbia’s Mahmoud Khalil, who holds permanent U.S. resident status, and Rumeysa Ozturk, a Ph.D. student at Tufts. Would Harvard uphold students’ privacy rights, Hoekstra was asked, and what was it doing to protect them given reported government abuse of SEVIS (the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System)? The questioner said the government was now altering foreign students’ status, without due process or usual regard for schools’ leadership in such determinations, prior to federal action against such students). Hoekstra said all such questions should be referred at once to the University’s Office of General Counsel. Federal law protects student privacy, she continued, and Harvard does not provide identifiable information on a student without a legal order to do so. Any concerned student could and should seek legal help from the University.
A director of graduate studies asked whether Harvard would permit a student who is resident legally, and who was then removed from campus or the country without proper due process to retain his or her status as a student in good standing—that is, complete academic work and progress toward program completion or a degree though removed from campus. He also asked several specific questions: whether Harvard might monitor SEVIS regularly and, upon detecting any change in a student’s status, provide him or her immediate notice; whether the University might close access to the Yard and nonpublic spaces to protect members of the community from immigration officers (Yale apparently restricted access as of March 31); whether it could boost Harvard International Office (HIO) and pro bono legal staffing and services for anyone caught up in current immigration enforcement activities; and whether it would use its alert system to notify campus when and if immigration authorities appear on campus.
Hoekstra acknowledged the concern nationwide about detention of students who are not citizens, and restated FAS’s commitment to welcoming students and scholars from around the world—as she had in her own lab. Removing them from the country, she said, “deprives our community of the benefit of their contribution to our campus discourse. I could not be more concerned” about such impacts on U.S. higher education.
She reviewed HIO’s outreach efforts and increased staffing and support and encouraged every concerned individual to meet with HIO personnel to discuss his or her circumstances and potential risk. A recent information session for international students and scholars on pro bono legal resources attracted 500 attendees, she noted, and more sessions are planned. And all community members have been counseled to contact the general counsel’s office and the Harvard University Police Department if asked by federal law enforcement personnel to provide access to nonpublic spaces or information.
The Political Threat to Free Expression
Beyond the immediate threat to foreign students who might be subject to attempted deportation, a faculty member raised a broader concern. It is heartbreaking, she said, if students self-censor on campus [problems discussed and addressed in multiple FAS initiatives cited above]. Far different, she said, is censorship imposed by government on the University community members’ research or speech. A School of Public Health colleague reported being unable to use certain words (like those pertaining to gender) in meetings with government officials. Data sets crucial to research are being suppressed. And now, two of her own international students, who have completed two years of superb data collection seeking to explain past presidential elections, are afraid to publish their results lest they risk suppression via deportation because of an unrelated letter to the editor they may have written or a bumper sticker they displayed. That situation—a real one—is the death of scholarship, she said.
Harvard, the professor continued, will not identify students absent specific legal requirements to do so. But the law, as now being applied, is murky, especially under the immigration statutes the administration is now using. The University, she said, must be proactive to keep its students present and free. There may be a cost to the institution of resisting pressure to change course—even $9 billion, if the government chooses to try to cancel contracts and future funding commitments per its review announced March 31. But there is also a “cost of letting a political administration shape” academic values and norms. Universities are disfavored by the public, she noted, and have much work to do to win back public trust. That can never be done, she said, if their research and mission are molded to political expediency.
Hoekstra agreed that the University faces “one of the biggest challenges” in its nearly 400-year history. She shared the speaker’s sense of the gravity of the situation. President Garber’s message about the government review of grant funding was the beginning of Harvard’s response. He was reaching out across the University and sought further views on dealing with “what seems like an impossible challenge.”
Although Hoekstra attempted to end the question period at this point to turn to regular business, the faculty voted to continue airing its concerns. Two final ones were of note.
Without referring directly to Garber’s March 31 community message, a faculty member rose to take issue with it. Garber wrote, in part:
We fully embrace the important goal of combatting antisemitism, one of the most insidious forms of bigotry. Urgent action and deep resolve are needed to address this serious problem that is growing across America and around the world. It is present on our campus. I have experienced antisemitism directly, even while serving as president, and I know how damaging it can be to a student who has come to learn and make friends at a college or university.
For the past fifteen months, we have devoted considerable effort to addressing antisemitism. We have strengthened our rules and our approach to disciplining those who violate them. We have enhanced training and education on antisemitism across our campus and introduced measures to support our Jewish community and ensure student safety and security. We have launched programs to promote civil dialogue and respectful disagreement inside and outside the classroom. We have adopted many other reforms, and we will continue to combat antisemitism and to foster a campus culture that includes and supports every member of our community.
We still have much work to do.
Garber wrote the University would engage with the federal government to explain what Harvard had done to combat antisemitism and would “take the measures that will move Harvard and its vital mission forward while protecting our community and its academic freedom.”
Elaborating on Hoekstra’s reference to creationism, this faculty member laid out hypothetical scenarios in which a few on-campus creationists attracted attention in the press and in Congress, so that over time, the public came to believe Harvard was saturated with creationist belief. That is essentially the case with current accusations that the University community is saturated with, and poisoned by, antisemitism—a case which is neither true nor remotely how the community knows itself, she maintained. The assault on this (and by implication, perhaps, other universities) on the grounds that they are antisemitic or unprotective of Jewish community members is “unanchored from the truth.” Rather than accepting the government’s accusation and detailing what Harvard is doing to combat antisemitism, she said, the University must say to the public, “This isn’t what Harvard is.” Rather than give in to government demands, she said, “Why accept untrue, painful descriptions of who we are?”
Hoekstra responded that antisemitism is always wrong and unacceptable and must not be present in the community; Harvard still has work to do to ensure that that is the case, atop the work it has already done during the past three semesters.
The final comments came from Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana, who said Harvard and higher education face a pivotal moment. Internal changes are warranted, he said, and elite schools face “increasingly legitimate concerns” about their role in society. Universities are imperfect, he continued, but they have an invaluable capacity for correction and self-scrutiny, as witnessed by their increased access to all populations, investments in affordability, and efforts to promote open inquiry and improved teaching. Given the challenges they face and the capacities they retain, Khurana said he believes it is time to strengthen higher education communities; Harvard has been doing so and must do more. But in so doing, it cannot allow external forces to overturn or censor faculty or student speech, or to deploy coercive power to alter teaching or the curriculum. Such authoritarian steps, he said, are a grave risk to one of America’s greatest assets, and to its democratic principles. At a moment when Harvard and higher education must do better, he concluded, it is essential that change is effected in the right way.
In Perspective
On that, at least, the faculty members wholeheartedly agreed. Somehow, it took the dean who is most directly involved with undergraduates to remind their professors of the institution’s highest principles and best practices. They will need to keep that top of mind in the testing weeks and perhaps fear-filled months ahead—for their students, their own professorial practice, and their leaders’ scope of action on an unfamiliar battleground.
No one should be under the illusion that doing so will be easy. There are deep divisions across the Crimson community (on campus, among alumni). For example, some believe the University has tolerated antisemitic conduct and failed to protect Jewish students—and so must be harshly sanctioned to induce significant change. Others, as noted above, perceive such criticisms as a grossly unfair caricature and (in the Trump administration’s hands) a pretext for an illegal, unremitting attack aimed at destroying academic freedom.
Less dramatically, there are, as always, differences among members of the community about its daily character. Holding aside the incendiary issues of antisemitism or anti-Palestinian bias, discrimination, or harassment (a near impossibility in current circumstances), there is debate over the degree to which diversity of opinion and healthy discourse exist here and at peer institutions. In his remarks, Professor Carpenter said that “intellectual diversity…has been the subject of conversation (but often too little action) at Harvard for my entire 23 years on the faculty.” Some colleagues agree with him. Others do not.
Hoekstra’s extensive comments on academic discourse, Khurana’s remarks, and President Garber’s past and most recent statements all suggest that these leaders share a concern about the breadth of viewpoints and caliber of healthy, rigorous exchanges and disagreements on campus, and are acting accordingly. Those perspectives enjoy varying degrees of support among faculty members across the University. Many professors understandably often focus on their immediate priorities: in the current environment, for example, their students’ safety and ability to pursue their studies. At moments like this, the natural differences in perspective of independent, individual faculty members and their school and institutional leaders can curdle into tension and division.
But at this extraordinary moment, everyone who values Harvard’s core commitments to its academic mission of teaching, learning, and research has an overwhelming interest in finding common ground on the means to sustain it. Those hostile to the enterprise have already proven adept at finding divisions and exploiting weaknesses, to startling effect.
