A Poor Choice of Commencement Speaker

Imagine if one of Harvard’s schools chose Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, or Bernie Sanders as its commencement speaker in the midst of the 2016 campaign season. Such a selection would not only raise eyebrows, but it would also threaten the university’s tax-exempt status—IRS rules prohibit non-profit organizations like Harvard from engaging in partisan, election-related activities. By law, any event giving a platform to political hopefuls must be carefully organized as a multi-candidate forum.

Beyond the question of what is legal, it would be wrong for a university administration to tilt the balance towards any one presidential candidate. A university is supposed to be a place for us to cultivate our critical thinking skills, a place where we can freely express and debate political ideas. When faculty deans—who make decisions about hiring and firing faculty, and about distributing funding—appear to take sides rather than encourage open discussion, it is tantamount to a restriction on academic freedom. Faculty, staff, and students who want to support Secretary Clinton’s political opponents, either in the context of academic debate or participation in campaign organization, may think twice if they perceive that the administration holds an opposing position. In an environment where people must compete for promotions, tenure, and financial aid, many of our community members would rather avoid conflict with those in power.

But what if the commencement speaker were not a presidential candidate, but a 40-year confidant of a presidential candidate and the head of that candidate’s eponymous foundation? That is the question raised by Acting Dean David Hunter’s decision to invite Donna Shalala, president of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, as the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s 2016 Commencement speaker. Dean Hunter invited Shalala despite concerns raised by Chan School student government leaders over email, who told him that the selection would amount to a tacit political endorsement. The announcement was made on Feb. 24, less than a week before the Massachusetts primary, and noted the Clinton Foundation affiliation in the first sentence of his email.

Shalala met the Clintons before they married in 1975. She served as director of the Children’s Defense Fund, coinciding with Hillary Clinton’s tenure as a board member from 1986 to 1992. Shalala then served as Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. At a 2014 event held at University of Miami, where Shalala served as president, she and Hillary Clinton hugged and the former Secretary of State went on to share stories about their friendship.

A month after Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy, Shalala left her position at University of Miami to become director of the Clinton Foundation. Shalala took the reins at a time when the organization had been dogged by negative publicity concerning infighting and conflicts of interest. She likely took a substantial pay cut to work for the Clintons: Shalala earned nearly $1 million dollars at University of Miami in 2014, whereas the outgoing president of the Clinton Foundation earned closer to $500,000 that same year.

Shalala has a wealth of leadership experience in the fields of health care advocacy and administration. She has taken principled positions in her career, serving as a voice of internal dissent during Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform initiative, which restricted access to public benefits and healthcare. In any other year, it would be an honor to have her speak at the Chan School’s commencement. But this year we must, as a school of public health, be able to have an open and ongoing conversation about our country’s political future. This can only happen if our institution maintains official neutrality. Given Shalala’s extremely close ties to a presidential candidate during an election year, Dean Hunter should apologize to her, rescind the invitation, and ask her to come back in 2017.

Justin Feldman is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.