Students, faculty fight for free speech at Harvard

A petition has been signed by almost 250 Harvard University students, staff, and alumni to urge the Presidential Search Committee to nominate someone who understands the importance of free speech, the Harvard Crimson reports.

“[U]nless the next President shows a firm commitment to protecting free speech at Harvard, that environment will continue to contract,” the petition reads.

“It’s undeniable that we have a culture at Harvard that doesn’t encourage free exchange of ideas in classrooms,” co-organizer of the petition, Victoria Li, told the Crimson.

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The petition alerts the reader that a “Harvard degree is increasingly associated with emotional and intellectual fragility; some employers have even forsworn hiring Harvard graduates.”

It continues, “Harvard cannot retain the world’s respect if it is seen as an intellectual environment in which dissent from orthodoxy is punished.”

The petition is scheduled to be sent to the Presidential Search Committee by the end of the semester.

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Campus Reform has reported on the trend in free speech being silenced at Harvard University.

In 2017, for example, Campus Reform reported on students protesting a conservative psychology professor.

Similarly, in 2016, Harvard Law School student Bill Barlow put up posters which read “Reclaim Harvard Law = Trump,” increasing tensions surrounding free speech on Harvard’s campus.

Campus Reform also reported on a club on Harvard’s campus formed in 2017 that had the purpose of students gathering with a “shared concern among many students for ideological trends threatening freedom of speech.”

Campus Reform contacted Harvard University, Victoria Li, and the Presidential Search Committee. This article will be updated accordingly.