Harvard Issues New Guidance on Policy Restricting Official University Statements

Harvard quietly rolled out new guidance on the implementation of its newly-adopted institutional voice report on Tuesday, following uncertainty over how strictly the recommendations would limit statements from University officials, centers, and student employees.

The preliminary guidelines extend the institutional voice principles down Harvard’s administrative ladder to include department chairs, program directors, and House faculty deans.

Though the new guidance carves out some exceptions, allowing advocacy-focused programs to “engage in their ordinary academic work,” it suggests the University is taking a far-reaching approach to its restrictions on public statements.

The guidelines, published as a five-page compilation of frequently asked questions, were approved by Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’77, Provost John F. Manning ’82, Executive Vice President Meredith L. Weenick ’90, and the University’s top deans.

But the FAQ did not answer some of the most frequently asked questions, according to several students and faculty members.

The document offered little information on how — or whether — the University intends to enforce its new policies against affiliates who fail to adhere to them.

Archon Fung, the director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at HKS, said he hoped the document’s release would be a starting point for a broader campus discussion on institutional voice.

“I think we all want some more clarity, and want to participate in shaping what that clarity looks like because it should be a two-way street,” Fung said. “So those I think conversations are just beginning.”

When Harvard released its initial institutional voice report in May, it established a policy against issuing statements on controversial issues while allowing the University and its representatives to defend Harvard’s “core function.”

The new guidelines categorize most of Harvard’s operations as an institution of higher education as part of that “core function” — such as admissions, faculty hiring, curriculum, advocacy for research funding, and academic freedom.

For instance, the guidelines affirm Harvard’s decisions to issue statements in support of affirmative action and against Trump-era restrictions on travel from several Muslim-majority countries. But they exclude the possibility that the Harvard School of Public Health could take a stance on the Affordable Care Act.

The guidelines specifically discourage University leaders from making statements on events that garner public attention, including natural disasters and acts of mass violence.

It also instructs University officials to refrain from saluting, flying flags, or signing petitions. Members of Harvard leadership, however, would be allowed to attend a memorial event that acknowledges a “public tragedy and honors and remembers lives lost.”

The new guidelines urge “particular restraint” from high-level administrators, warning that statements they make could be easily interpreted as official University positions.

However, they also encourage caution from program leaders and department and area chairs, asking them to “indicate that they are not speaking for their institutional unit” when they publish opinions in their capacity as academics.

Messages posted on official social media accounts, websites, and email announcements will be considered official statements, according to the report.

Fung expressed cautious optimism about Harvard’s movement toward institutional neutrality but warned the policies could backfire if Harvard took them too far.

While Fung said he agrees that academic centers should not take official stances on individual policies or political candidates, he argued that some institutions — like the Ash Center — should be transparent about their goals.

“Our pro-democracy bias is not an outcome of a large investigation of many ways to govern human societies,” he said. “It’s a prior normative commitment that informs our work.”

Fung said he was also concerned that an institutional voice policy that restricts statements by lower-level chairs and directors — not just Harvard’s top brass — could curb free speech instead of protecting it.

“Then I think what you’ve effectively done is chill the speech by extending it all the way down,” he said.

A Harvard spokesperson declined to comment on criticisms of the new guidelines.

Even before Harvard adopted its institutional voice principles in May, the University had already sought to encourage the leaders of academic centers and institutions to distance themselves from Harvard when issuing statements on matters of public interest.

Harvard Kennedy School professor Mathias Risse, who leads the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, wrote in an email that he received pushback from the school’s administration after his center issued a pair of statements in October 2023 that condemned Hamas’ attack on Israel and Israel’s large-scale retaliation in Gaza, while urging steps toward deescalation and long-term peace.

The statements were initially made on behalf of the Carr Center, but then-HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf asked Risse and Carr Center Executive Director Maggie Gates to add notes asserting they represented only the views of the directors.

Risse and Gates complied, but Risse wrote in an email that they did so “reluctantly.”

“A human rights center as such should be permitted to articulate views on the world’s most visible human rights crisis, as long as it does so in moderate and reasonable ways,” Risse wrote.

Risse added that he believes statements like his and Gates’ would be compliant with the institutional voice principles. A Harvard spokesperson declined to comment on whether the institutional voice policy allows similar statements.

After administrators discussed the institutional voice report at a Sept. 13 training for undergraduate student employees at Harvard College’s diversity offices, some students felt they did not receive clear answers on what kind of statements their offices could issue.

Olivia F. Data ’26, who works at the Women’s Center, wrote in an email that she thought the new guidance remained unclear.

“If we constantly have to ask ourselves whether an email or flier or event goes against a bureaucratic policy, then that’s less focus we can devote to our primary goal — advocating for gender equity,” she wrote.

Aaryan K. Rawal ’26, who works at the Office of BGLTQ Student Life, wrote in a statement that they were surprised their statements might be restricted by a policy they thought was intended to govern high-level administrators.

“Are student employees considered ‘university leaders’ suddenly — and if we’re not, why were [equity, diversity, and inclusion] student workers subject to a half-baked training on institutional voice?” Rawal wrote.

The new guidance also suggested that the College is trying to assert more control over statements by officially recognized student groups.

“Student organizations are subject to the policies of the Schools at which they are based. Schools will work with student organizations to ensure that any statements by those groups follow School policies and are not framed as representing the positions or views of the University or its constituent parts,” the document reads.

Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton declined to specify whether student groups will be required to vet statements with school officials or how the policy would be enforced.

“As always, student organizations are expected to abide by school and university policies, including the university’s long-standing use-of-name policies,” he wrote in a statement. “Student organizations with questions are encouraged to reach out to their local student affairs offices.”

—Staff writer Xinni (Sunshine) Chen can be reached at sunshine.chen@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @sunshine_cxn.

—Staff writer Tilly R. Robinson can be reached at tilly.robinson@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @tillyrobin.