A Panel Moderated by Professor Ned Hall with Guests Professors Rakesh Khurana and Julie Reuben

On the evening of Thursday October 23, students, faculty, and community members gathered in the Leverett Library Theater for a reprised discussion on Harvard’s response to the Trump administration. This time, attendees heard from former Dean Khurana and Professor Julie Reuben about academic freedom and the role of the institution in a conversation moderated by Professor Ned Hall.

These discussions have come in the wake of a months-long standoff between Harvard and the Trump administration, which has demanded sweeping policy changes in exchange for billions in federal funding. Over the past six months, the University has fought these demands in court and won a favourable ruling, but a large portion of its funding remains at risk. Amid political and legal pressure, several changes have already been made: including within Harvard’s departmental structure, admissions, and student and faculty orientations. The situation has forced the Harvard community to reckon with fundamental questions: What does it mean for our university to be independent? And at what cost can we keep this independence?

Throughout the evening, panelists offered contrasting perspectives on the situation. One panelist helpfully framed Harvard’s current dilemma as a part of a long-lasting tension between Harvard’s responsibility to the rest of the world and Harvard’s own intellectual autonomy. Another emphasized that we are currently at a point where we have lost a clear joint vision or purpose for the University, and that in order to work things out, we need to know where we are trying to go. They recommended that it is each of our jobs, as members of the Harvard community, to have hopes about how and why Harvard might respond because we all have stakes in the University’s decisions. We at Harvard can be leaders of a social compact centered in humility, and this panelists hopes that maintaining this value will allow us to form relationships and reinforce solidarity with other institutions and individuals in our community and country.

Participants were left with important questions to continue pursuing: What should be Harvard’s centralized purpose? Who should decide, and what happens to those who are part of the community, but who disagree? What does the university owe its students, the US, and the world?