HARVARD ELECTIONS: Next week, 1636 Forum will share our candidate recommendations for Harvard’s 2026 Board of Overseers and Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) Elected Director elections. Voting opens next Wednesday, April 1 and closes May 19. We’ll share voting instructions too!
The House Committee on Education & the Workforce’s new report, “How Campuses Became Hotbeds: The Rise of Radical Antisemitism on College Campuses,” came with a set of previously unreleased Harvard documents. Last week, our Special Edition on the report highlighted several School of Public Health (HSPH)-related revelations in that release.
Among them is an email (p. 241) that offers a revealing look at how an external academic review process at HSPH began, and raises a basic question about what kind of problem the situation was understood to be: an academic matter to be evaluated through faculty oversight, or a reputational concern routed through Communications and Development offices.
In November 2024, as HSPH considered an external review of its course, “The Settler Colonial Determinants of Health,” Stephanie Simon, the School’s head of communications, compiled a list of four potential reviewers, along with bios and notes on their scholarly work. The course was set to be taught by a non-ladder affiliate of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights, a center long criticized for its Gaza-related programming “characterized by bias and misinformation,” with minimal ladder-faculty oversight.
Simon sent her four choices to HSPH Dean Andrea Baccarelli and senior administrators across Academic Affairs, Education, and Development, adding, “We’d need to vet any reviewers more carefully to ensure that they are respected scholars in the field.”
The email provides a snapshot of the review’s first steps. The initial pool of reviewers appears to have been assembled in the Communications office and circulated among senior administrators, with Development included from the outset. Keeping senior administrators apprised of an external review may be appropriate, but that doesn’t mean Communications or Development should be involved in selecting reviewers. And whatever the full sequence was, reviewer selection began inside the School’s reputational machinery, not with a process led by the school’s academic leadership.
That’s a category error.
If a school like HSPH decides to pursue an external academic review, reviewer selection should be conducted on academic grounds. Undertaken properly, external academic review is a scholarly check: a reviewer uses relevant expertise to test a course’s intellectual integrity, question assumptions, and identify blind spots — including having the intellectual humility to ask hard questions about blind spots even within their own fields of expertise.
But because a review is only as rigorous (and credible) as the reviewer, one key judgment comes before any review is written. It comes in the process that defines the pool of potential reviewers and selects who will conduct the review.
Deciding who is equipped to evaluate a course is itself an academic judgment, and once that judgment is shaped by PR logic, the review’s conclusions are no longer purely academic. A process designed to manage perception can’t fully serve the University’s pursuit of Veritas.
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Q: Does Harvard offer any PhD, EdD, or DBA programs that are 100% online?
No, Harvard doesn’t currently offer any doctorate-level degrees that can be completed online. Harvard does offer online master’s programs at its School of Education and School of Public Health, as well as a range of non-degree online courses and certificate programs across several schools (including the Business School, Kennedy School, and Medical School).
Events
Virtual — April 1 from 10:00-11:00 am ET: At this Inside HBS series event, Harvard Business School (HBS) Dean Srikant Datar and Executive Director of MBA and Doctoral Programs and External Relations Jana Kierstead will discuss recent developments and priorities at HBS, including around AI and entrepreneurship. Register here.
Cambridge, MA and Virtual — April 9 from 5:30-7:00 pm ET: Harvard Graduate School of Education is hosting University Professor Danielle Allen (PhD ‘02) on the role of schools in civic education as the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, with discussion focused on patriotism, pluralism, and democratic participation in polarized times. Register here.
Virtual & New York, NY — April 13 at 7:30 pm ET: President Alan Garber (AB ’76, PhD ’82) will speak with Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker at the 92nd Street Y about the pressures reshaping research universities and their role in American democracy. Register here.
Washington, DC — April 15 from 5:30-8:00 pm ET: Meet HKS Dean Jeremy Weinstein at this HKS on the Road series event. Register here.
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FYIs
Education Department Opens Two New Civil Rights Investigations Into Harvard
On March 23, the Department of Education’s (ED) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened two new Title VI investigations into Harvard, citing complaints that the University continues to discriminate on the basis of race, color, and national origin.
One probe will examine whether Harvard is still using “illegal race-based preferences” in admissions despite the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
The second probe will examine allegations of ongoing antisemitic harassment on campus and Harvard’s purported failure to protect Jewish students.
OCR also issued a “Letter of Impending Enforcement Action” to Harvard on March 23, citing Harvard’s alleged refusal to provide requested information about its admissions process since it opened an admissions compliance review in May 2025. Harvard has 20 calendar days to comply with OCR’s information requests or face enforcement actions, including potential referral to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
In response to the DOJ’s antisemitism-related Title VI lawsuit against Harvard, Harvard Chabad founder Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi said Harvard has “unequivocally not” been indifferent to antisemitism, while adding the problem remains pervasive. Harvard Hillel executive director, Rabbi Jason Rubenstein (AB ’04), said that while “there is much more to be done,” “the only plausible characterization of Harvard’s current leadership is as principled and effective in confronting and removing the intolerance” on campus.
Harvard College Disputes Report of Admissions Office’s Outreach To Jewish Day Schools
Harvard College’s admissions office rejected a Washington Free Beacon article claiming it had begun targeted outreach to Jewish day schools, saying the remarks attributed to Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William Fitzsimmons (AB ‘67) were inaccurate and that Harvard has not recently increased such outreach.
The Free Beacon updated its story with an editor’s note saying the remarks attributed to Fitzsimmons were incorrect; students and Harvard Chabad founder Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi said Fitzsimmons was introduced at a February 20 dinner, but didn’t deliver formal remarks.
Harvard Hillel executive director Rabbi Jason Rubenstein said that Hillel has “worked closely with Dean Fitzsimmons and others in admissions to help them understand the Jewish community,” and while the number of admitted Jewish students is still “below a threshold of communal viability,” it has “increased markedly over previous years.”
The dispute comes amid attention to Harvard’s Jewish enrollment trends after the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance (HJAA) released a report estimating Jewish undergraduates now make up about 7% of the College — roughly half of the share a decade ago.
Harvard Law Raises Record $61 Million in First Half of FY26
Harvard Law School (HLS) raised at least $61 million in the first six months of fiscal year 2026 — the strongest start by January in the school’s fundraising history, according to internal meeting minutes obtained by The Crimson.
According to the minutes, the amount included seven six-figure gifts to the Annual Fund, which supports HLS’s operations. The minutes also list HLS’s internal goal of $100 million raised by June 30 (the end of Harvard’s fiscal year).
During the same period as HLS, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences also had one of its strongest performances in recent memory, raising $222 million (up $62 million from the same period a year earlier).
Also announced this week, a legal scholarship citation ranking (Willey & Knapp’s The Top 100 Legal Scholars of 2025) placed Harvard Law School first among law schools by number of ranked scholars on the list (9), ahead of Penn (7) and Yale (6). Penn has held the top spot for the two years prior, noting that the change is “more a reflection on Harvard’s impressive rise than any negative performance on Penn’s part.”
HSPH Environmental Health Chair Named UCLA Public Health Dean
Professor Kari Nadeau, chair of the Department of Environmental Health at the School of Public Health (HSPH), will leave Harvard effective July 1 to become dean of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health; she has led the department since 2023.
Nadeau has also been involved in the transition at HSPH’s François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights. She briefly served as interim director in December when the Center’s refocus on children’s health was first announced, and now sits on the four-person faculty advisory committee overseeing the Center in lieu of an interim director.
More News
More News at Harvard
Harvard Gazette: “‘OK, I get it. This makes sense.’” — feat. Subcommittee on Grading faculty members Stuart Schreiber (PhD ‘81), Joshua Greene (AB ‘97), and Alisha Holland (PhD ‘14)
The Crimson: “Harvard Admits Class of 2030 on Ivy Day, Withholds Admissions Data for Second Year”
The Crimson: “Justice Department’s Case Against Harvard Rests on Shaky Ground, Experts Say”
The Crimson: “Harvard Graduate Student Union to Close Strike Vote After Four Weeks”
The Crimson: “Back in the Classroom, Claudine Gay Will Ask Harvard Students to Rethink Harvard”
Harvard Gazette: “A community-sized Seder plate”
STAT News: “A family’s giving to the Broad Institute’s research tops $1 billion”
The Crimson: “120 Harvard Jewish Affiliates Condemn Justice Department Antisemitism Lawsuit”
Kempner Institute: “Massive Increase of Computing Power for Kempner Institute at Harvard”
The Crimson: “As Life Sciences Development Slows, Allston Developers Turn Toward Housing”
The Crimson: “‘Lost Control’: Harvard Law Affiliates Decry Accelerated Law Firm Recruiting Timelines”
The Crimson: “Harvard Law Students Demand Divestment From Tech Giants, Ban on Law Firms They Say Enable ICE”
The Crimson: “‘Ready to Get Started’: Harvard Medical School Students Celebrate Match Day”
Boston Globe: “‘We’re sick of these discrepancies’: MGB cancer clinicians say they’re underpaid, face battle to unionize”
The Crimson: “Harvard Law Clinical Workers Reach Agreement on 6 of 43 Contract Articles After 19 Months”
The Crimson: “To the Editor: Two Free Speech Principles in Tension” — letter by Harvard Council of Academic Freedom (CAFH) co-presidents Jeffrey Flier, Eric Maskin (AB ’72, PhD ’76); and Steven Pinker (PhD ’79), along with CAFH member Richard Losick and CAFH director Jason Nemirow
The Crimson: “The Economics Department Needs To Raise Its Standards” — op-ed by Matthew Tobin (AB ’27)
Boston Globe: “I made Harvard students give up their clocks. The results were revelatory.” — by Harvard physics professor Jonathan Huth feat. his General Education course
The Crimson: “Keep the Gifts, Lose the Grip” — editorial by The Crimson Editorial Board
The Crimson: “Grade Caps Fail the Game Theory Exam” — op-ed by HBS professor Scott Kominers (AB ‘09, PhD ‘11)
More News Beyond Harvard
Yale Daily News: “New data shows top foreign source of Yale gifts: English Channel isle”
Cornell Daily Sun: “Student Assembly Funding Resolution Stalls, Kotlikoff Rejects Two Resolutions”
Duke Chronicle: “What’s missing at Duke: A curriculum of categories, not curiosity”
Columbia Spectator: “Middle States Commission on Higher Education reaffirms Columbia’s accreditation after previous warning”
New York Times: “One Year After Trump’s $400 Million Ultimatum, a Different Columbia”
The Free Press: “Columbia Faculty Recommend Anti-Israel Professor for Middle Eastern Studies Position” — feat. Harvard history professor Rosie Bsheer
UC Berkeley News: “UC Berkeley’s statement following Brandeis Center suit settlement”
Washington Free Beacon: “'Plainly Wrong': Berkeley Law Dean Accused of Violating Settlement Agreement Over 'Anti-Zionist' Student Group Bylaws”
Washington Free Beacon: “'Dezionize Jewish Consciousness': Columbia-Affiliated Seminary Picks Up Anti-Israel Academics Who Abruptly Resigned From Harvard “
Chronicle of Higher Education: “Economic Affirmative Action Is Working” — by Richard Kahlenberg (AB ‘85, JD ‘89), director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute
New York Times: “Trump’s Contested Campus Antisemitism Fight Is Accelerating Again”
Susman Godfrey: “Susman Godfrey Defies BigLaw’s Recruiting Frenzy with Applicant-First Summer Program”
Wall Street Journal: “What Young Workers Are Doing to AI-Proof Themselves”
Cornell Daily Sun: “Why Cornell's Silent Majority Must Speak” — op-ed by anonymous Cornell graduate student
Daily Princetonian: “I was the Honor Committee chair. It’s time for proctors.” — op-ed by Princeton senior Nadia Makuc
Scholar’s Stage: “China and the Future of Science” — by Tanner Greer, Deputy Director of the China Open Source Observatory