Harvard University will refrain from making statements on public policy issues that are not directly related to the functioning of the institution, its interim president announced in a campus-wide email Tuesday.
Garber noted that the decision was made in response to recommendations from the Institutional Voice Working Group, which was established in April “to consider whether and when our institutions should make public statements on matters of public importance.”
But the group's report makes clear that universities are still expected to speak out on certain issues.
“Universities therefore have a responsibility to use their voices to protect and promote their core functions,” the Institutional Voice Working Group report states. “University leaders must communicate the values of the university’s central activities. For example, if outside forces want to determine which students a university can admit, what subjects it can teach, or what research it supports, they must defend the university's autonomy and academic freedom when it is threatened. And they must speak out on issues directly related to university operations.”
The authors warned “universities and their leaders” against speaking out on “public issues that do not directly affect the core functions of the university.” They argued that “the integrity and credibility of the institution are undermined when the university speaks publicly on matters outside the institution’s area of expertise.” Moreover, Harvard leaders “are hired not for their expertise in public affairs but for their ability to lead institutions of higher education,” they wrote. “They should therefore, in their official roles, confine themselves to the area of institutional expertise and responsibility, namely the running of the university.”
The report also cited concerns about pressure to comment on “every imaginable issue of the day” if such comments become commonplace. “If the University takes an official position on an issue that extends beyond its core functions, it will be understood to be taking one view on that issue,” it reads. The report recommended refraining from such comments in the future.
Tuesday's announcement comes after a difficult year for college presidents across the U.S. as campus tensions rise due to the Israel-Hamas war. Many presidents who have issued statements since Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel and Israel's retaliatory attacks on Gaza have been criticized for a variety of reasons, from how difficult it is for university presidents to please voters when they speak on polarizing political topics. It shows.