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The Dean of Students Office will not intervene after the Harvard Undergraduate Association’s Election Commission refused to share the full results of a student survey sent last month, Dean of Students Thomas G. Dunne said in a Tuesday interview.

The survey, which included questions submitted by the HUA and two pro-Palestine student groups, asked undergraduates whether they thought the University should divest from or disclose investments in “companies and institutions operating in Israel.” It also asked students about this summer’s diversity office closures, campus transportation, and HUA election procedure.

Before the response deadline, the Election Commission — an application-based body which operates separately from the HUA’s executive leadership — did little to publicize the survey, which was in the same form as a ballot for a vacant HUA Sports Team Officer position and only made available after students cast their sports officer vote, and emphasized that the survey’s results were nonbinding.

After the survey closed, the commission announced it would not release full results, citing a policy against publicly sharing survey findings — though no such policy was shared with the student body in writing.

No guidelines for this fall’s survey were distributed by the Election Commission, and DSO Assistant Dean of Student Engagement and Leadership Andy Donahue told The Crimson — one day before the survey closed — that the commission was operating under survey guidelines from the 2024-25 school year. The guidelines state that survey results must “be released in a non-leading manner” but do not require the HUA or student groups to keep them under wraps.

The HUA’s constitution requires that its campaign rules be finalized by Oct. 1 and states that no rules for elections can be retroactively adopted. The survey guidelines have been included in the campaign rules, which also govern officer elections and constitutional referenda, after they were first adopted last academic year.

The five-member Election Commission that presided over November’s survey included all four Election Commission members from last spring, after the HUA did not hold a second appointment process. According to the HUA constitution, each April, the HUA must circulate applications for the Election Commission, which will serve from September to May.

Among student activists, backlash to the opaque survey process was swift. But Dunne on Tuesday said he did not think conversations on the HUA’s handling of the survey should be initiated by the DSO.

“I think that it’s important for the HUA to be under their own leadership,” he said.

“And I haven’t had any conversations with HUA leadership about the survey,” he said.

Though the student government receives funding from the DSO, primarily through the Student Activities Fee, and is advised by Donahue, the office has stayed out of previous HUA affairs. In February, Dunne said he was also not involved with the HUA’s requests to add student representatives to the College’s Administration Board.

The HUA’s Election Commission is also overseen by Donahue.

The November survey contained a ballot to fill the vacant sports officer position, as well as the two questions on divestment and disclosure from the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.

The survey also included a question from the Harvard Undergraduate Jews for Peace on whether Harvard should have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which has been used to interpret certain criticisms of Israel as antisemitic.

Eight questions from the HUA were also included on the ballot.

The Election Commission only sent The Crimson a partially-redacted copy of the results and warned the PSC that “appropriate action will be taken” against the organization if they tried to release the results “to the broader public in a leading manner.”

Roughly a seventh of undergraduates participated in the survey. Almost 63 percent of survey respondents said that the University should divest from “companies and institutions operating in Israel,” and nearly 70 percent supported disclosure, according to results obtained by The Crimson.

Dunne said on Tuesday that the confusion surrounding the survey could warrant further discussion about how the survey is marketed to students.

“My sense is because this generated a degree of conversation on campus is to say, ‘What is it we’re learning from this? Are there things we want to reconsider or better explain to students?’” Dunne said. “But that’s really something that is — necessarily, I think, it’s important that the HUA is in charge of their own affairs.”

The HUA co-presidents and the Election Commission did not respond to a request for comment on whether they planned on discussing changes to survey or election procedures with Dunne.

—Staff writer Harmony G. Fisher can be reached at [email protected].

—Staff writer Darcy G Lin can be reached at [email protected].