On Wednesday, February 7, 2024, students, administrators, and faculty involved with Intellectual Vitality were invited for dinner and dialogue at the home of Dean of Students, Tom Dunne. The focus of the dinner was to discuss the growth of Intellectual Vitality, through engaging in dialogue regarding future plans, and to gather input on how and…
Harvard Shouldn’t Just Blame Students for Free Speech Woes
About a week ago, Harvard announced its “Intellectual Vitality and Free Expression Student Summit,” which was co-hosted by PEN America, a non-profit dedicated to free expression. “Our hope is that through participating in this event,” the announcement stated, “you will feel more well versed in literacy on free expression issues… advocating for your rights… [and]…
At Harvard, A Summit For Free Expression
Amid its high-profile struggle around free speech on campus, Harvard College invited PEN America to convene a Free Expression Summit on Friday for 100 student leaders from Harvard and other universities. Read more from Pen America…
Defending Civil Discourse on Campus
On Thursday evening, the nonprofit held its “Free Expression Student Summit” at Harvard. Nearly 100 students participated in the two-day event, which began with a Thursday evening keynote panel titled “Combatting Censorship, Disinformation, and Hate” and continued into Friday, with workshops on cancel culture, protest rights, and academic freedom. The summit was the first public…
‘Harvard Dialogues’ taps power of respectful debate
As part of a commitment to open discourse on campus and off, Harvard will hold a series of events designed to model productive dialogue. “Harvard Dialogues,” which launched Thursday, is part of a broader initiative to address how the campus community can communicate more openly and constructively within classrooms and in the broader world. Read…
Free Speech on Campus
On Tuesday evening, one week after the Congressional hearing that prompted demands for President Claudine Gay’s dismissal and less than 12 hours after Harvard Corporation members released a statement confirming their support for her continued leadership, a group of scholars gathered at the Radcliffe Institute for a long-planned discussion of campus speech that had suddenly…
Harvard College Dean Khurana Stresses Value of Intellectual Vitality, Condemns Doxxings Amid Campus Turmoil
Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana condemned student doxxings and stressed the importance of free idea exchange amid a period of campus turmoil around the ongoing violence in Israel and Gaza in a Friday interview with The Crimson. Read more in The Harvard Crimson…
About Those Free Speech Rankings
A few weeks after we started working on this column, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression released their yearly college free speech rankings, placing Harvard dead last out of 248 universities. Read more on The Harvard Crimson…
Intellectual Authenticity Is The New Face Of Holistic College Admissions
In recent years, U.S. colleges have seen three watershed moments rock the admissions process. The movement towards test-optionality, the striking down of affirmative action, and the ongoing debates around legacy admissions have all pointed us to a fundamental shift in how universities examine potential new students. How should families adapt to this shift, and what…
Campus Conversations on Speech
On campuses nationwide, free inquiry, intellectual diversity, and civil discourse have led to numerous incidents in which professors have been “mobbed, cursed, heckled into silence, and sometimes assaulted,” they continued (these events are allegedly mirrored by a less publicly visible silencing of students, who, fearing reprisal, are unwilling to discuss certain topics in class). Read…