Harvard Islamic Studies Program X Account Reinstated After University Intervenes

The X account belonging to the Harvard Islamic Studies Program was reinstated on April 18 following a nearly two-month suspension after the University’s Office of the General Counsel reached out to the legal office at X Corporation.

“I had reached out to the University’s general counsel’s office,” said Harry Bastermajian, the program’s executive director. “One of the University’s attorneys from the Office reached out to the Director of Legal at X Corp and sent them a message explaining the situation.”

“Within minutes, they got a response from the Director of Legal — the Chief Legal Officer for X Corp — and said, problem has been resolved,” Bastermajian said.

“No explanation,” he added.

The University had asked X for an update on why the program’s account had been suspended, Bastermajian said, only to be informed quickly that the account had been restored.

“Within just a few moments I heard back from the general counsel’s office saying it’s been fixed,” he said.

Bastermajian said he was glad to have access to the account again, and noticed that nothing on the account had changed.

“We just want to be able to have access back to the site, and it's up and running again,” he said. “Nothing was taken down. Nothing was blocked, or anything like that. All of our followers were there.”

Bastermajian noted that The Crimson’s report was “helpful in the sense that it did get some attention on the issue”.

“We definitely received a lot of notes from colleagues, faculty, staff, students, offering their support and saying ‘Sorry that happened to you, we hope everything gets corrected,’” he said.

“Maybe it was just a mistake,” he added.

—Staff writer Elizabeth R. Huang can be reached at lizzy.huang@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @lizzyrhuang.