After the Salient Complained About Restrictions, Harvard Will Make Door-to-Door Distribution Easier

Harvard College announced plans to reinstall inboxes on dormitory doors after The Harvard Salient, a conservative student publication, complained that faculty deans in upperclassmen dorms restricted their monthly door-to-door magazine distribution.

The Salient began its fight to reinstate door drops after three upperclassmen Houses asked the publication to stop, describing the loose magazines as potential fire and slip hazards, starting in February 2024. The dispute first became public through an article published by Brietbart on Jan. 22.

But Salient President Sarah L. Steele ’18-’26 framed the dispute as a free speech battle, alleging the Salient was singled out for its political bent.

“All of this was pretextual for the real reason that we were being banned, which is the conservative content,” she said in an interview with Fox News on Jan. 25.

Though the door boxes have not yet been installed, the Salient resumed its door-to-door distribution to all Houses last week. The printed magazines were placed in plastic bags, which were hooked onto door handles or taped to doors.

Salient representatives met several times with House and College administrators — including College Dean Rakesh Khurana and Dean of Students Thomas Dunne — to argue that door-to-door distribution should be reinstated as an essential part of campus discourse.

The Salient also contacted the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, a faculty free speech group, on Dec. 12, according to CAFH co-president and Math professor Melanie Matchett Wood.

The Salient told CAFH they were worried about “improper targeting of their publication based on the content,” Wood said. CAFH reviewed a report compiled by the Salient and brought the issue to administrators, who said they were already in discussions with Salient leaders.

Three Houses — Winthrop, Currier, and Lowell — asked the Salient to stop door drops in emails sent on their behalf by the Dean of Students Office.

Winthrop faculty deans Stephen N. Chong and Kiran Gajwani wrote in an email that one of them met with the Salient after students in the publication reached out. At the meeting, they wrote, they told the Salient they could circulate their print issues “in accordance with our current policy for all student publications, which is distributing publications on newspaper racks in approved locations.”

Currier faculty deans Sylvia I. Barrett and Latanya A. Sweeney wrote in an email that they never asked the Salient to cease distribution in Currier, but that they have “consistently” asked the Dean of Students office to remind student groups not to leave their publications outside residents’ doors.

Door-to-door distribution has been “considered a fire and safety hazard long before our tenure as faculty deans began and we were told that it had always been prohibited,” Barrett and Sweeney wrote.

In response to a request for comment, Lowell House faculty dean David I. Laibson ’88 wrote in an email that “Lowell House follows the policy — shared by all Houses — that dropping publications in front of students’ doors is not allowed for safety reasons.”

“I am glad that going forward student publications will have a means of being disseminated (using new door baskets),” he added.

The Salient is not the only publication that was asked to limit its door drops last year.

After The Crimson’s Business board left its Crimson Career Guide outside doors at all 12 Houses, The Crimson received an email from Lowell House’s resident dean on Oct. 9 warning that such distribution was not permitted. (The Career Guide is a sponsored booklet and is produced separately from the paper’s reported and editorial publications.)

“We noticed you door dropped your magazine in Lowell House. Please note that door dropping is not allowed in Lowell House,” the email read.

The email also included a link to the House website’s advertising and publicity policy, which reads “no door dropping of flyers in residential hallways is allowed.”

The Harvard Lampoon — a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine — leaves its materials outside student rooms. The Harvard Independent, an alternative newspaper that publishes weekly, also distributes some of its issues door-to-door. The Lampoon and the Independent did not respond to requests for comment on whether they had received similar warnings.

In an email to students on Jan. 27, Khurana announced the planned reinstallation of door boxes, which he described as a “small but meaningful initiative” to support “vital and open discourse on campus.”

Khurana’s email did not mention the Salient. Harvard College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo declined to state whether the change was made in response to the Salient’s complaint, writing in a statement that the College “engages with student organizations on a regular basis to discuss various policies related to the appropriate distribution of materials on campus.”

Palumbo also declined to state whether faculty deans would retain the ability to regulate the distribution of printed material in their houses.

Clarification: Friday, February 21

A previous version of this article stated that three Houses asked the Salient to stop door drops in an email sent on their behalf by the Dean of Students Office. To clarify, the messages for each House were sent separately.

—Staff writer Hiral M. Chavre can be reached at hiral.chavre@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @h_chavre.

—Staff writer Darcy G Lin can be reached at darcy.lin@thecrimson.com.