Another Day, Another Committee

Every week it seems, Harvard finds itself in the news for one of its now-numerous advisory groups.

These task forces, working groups, and committees have marked the school’s defining response to its controversies — from doxxing to institutional neutrality — and this sprawling administrative map has the potential to chart a path towards positive change.

But only if Harvard lets them: If the University is serious about institutional improvement, then they must listen to its many assemblies and empower them to make a difference. A toothless task force is no task force at all.

Yet, for all the constant coverage Harvard’s committees have earned, one has slipped by relatively unnoticed — despite the highly important issue it seeks to address.

Harvard’s Classroom Social Compact Committee was unveiled this month to develop guidelines for classroom engagement. The committee’s exigence needs no explanation — headline after headline, op-ed after op-ed, and congressperson after congressperson have commented on a perceived decline in college campus discourse, with some condemning Harvard’s climate as the worst in the nation.

Contrary to this deeply distressing picture, our experience in the Harvard classroom is one defined by enriching conversation, respectful disagreement, and open discussion. Harvard’s speech culture is certainly not stranded in the dire straits that punditry loves to suggest.

While alarmists frequently point to polls purporting to document widespread “self-censorship” on college campuses, these surveys can fail to distinguish when students are legitimately silent for fear of retribution and when students’ silence follows thoughtful questioning of their beliefs. The reality is much rosier than responses to half-baked survey questions would suggest.

The main area where speech apparently suffers at Harvard involves trepidation when broaching controversial discussions — trepidation that has even come from the University’s top ranks.

Following Oct. 7 and the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, faculty deans emailed out vague statements regarding “recent news from the Middle East,” avoiding any actual mention of the words hostages, terrorism, war, bombing, or death.

We support Harvard’s efforts to foster a more inclusive culture of discourse, but we also need to learn in a culture that is unafraid to discuss — let alone name — the controversial.

Harvard’s new committee must address statements like these that obscure the truth in a jumble of platitudes, making a mockery of a University dedicated to veritas.

But the main threat to conversations on campus comes from the outside: right wing provocateurs who seek to flay our professors for their ostensible “wokeness.” Outsiders skirting the perceived boundaries of the school, lambasting its choices on social media, and siccing virtual mobs on our professors intimidate faculty and undermine the scholarly project, impeding the free flow of ideas necessary for proper academic discourse. The committee must not lose sight of this threat in its work too.

Because discourse is the lifeblood of any scholarly institution, we welcome the committee and ask that they proceed transparently, consult with students, and provide training on establishing discussion norms.

Nevertheless, the committee’s remarkably vague name — the “Classroom Social Compact Committee” — ominously suggests that the problem of Orwellian phraseology on fraught topics has infected the very organization tasked with fixing classroom discussion. Unless the committee can clearly articulate their purpose and the problems they seek to address, we question how exactly they will improve discourse at Harvard.

While it is nice to receive institutional assistance in the fight for better speech culture, the onus to improve our conversations lies with students, much like it does with other cultural issues on campus. We must assume the best intentions of our fellow interlocutors and approach them with kindness and a willingness to listen.

Any improvement to our discourse will ultimately start with us.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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