HARVARD ELECTIONS: For Board of Overseers elections, we recommend: Salvo Arena, Nisha Kumar Behringer, Trey Grayson, Alfredo Gutiérrez Ortiz Mena, and Philip Harrison. For Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) Elected Director elections, we recommend: Mia Esther Alpert, James P. “Jimmy” Biblarz, Allison Charney Epstein, Medha Gargeya, David Lefer, and Jakob Haesler.
If you want to understand what Yale believes has eroded trust in higher education, Yale’s role in it, and how it plans to act, there’s now a clear place to start.
Last week, a committee of Yale faculty appointed by President Maurie McInnis released a university-wide report diagnosing a cluster of issues — ever-rising tuition, admissions opacity, self-censorship and lack of viewpoint diversity, grade inflation and compression, disengaged classrooms, and bureaucratic inefficiencies — as central to the public’s declining trust in Yale and American higher education.
President McInnis followed with a comprehensive public letter to the Yale community in which she methodically lays out Yale’s plans to act, or how it is already acting, on each of the report’s recommendations. The letter also acknowledges that the decline in public trust “did not come out of nowhere, nor did it happen overnight. So far, the report’s findings, recommendations, and overall rollout have been well-received by its faculty.
The result is something Harvard doesn’t have. Yale has created a single, clear place where both everyone — including the 70% of the American public who say higher education is heading in the wrong direction — can see what Yale thinks went wrong and what it plans to do next.
Harvard has already studied many of the same issues — but without a single place to see the full picture.
Harvard has produced reports on classroom culture, campus speech, academic standards, and more. These efforts have seriously analyzed the issues and often offered thoughtful recommendations. But it’s hard to get credit for work people don’t know about. If you wanted to easily understand how Harvard diagnoses each of its challenges, takes responsibility for them, and what it’s doing or says it plans to do about them, where would you begin?
For Yale, the answer is now President McInnis’s letter. Yale, like Harvard, is a decentralized university, and the work of fleshing out of each recommendation will rely on various committees. The letter links to each of these committees, but it’s meaningful that the existence and charge of these committees can all be discovered in one place — a webpage written by Yale’s own president.
Decentralization in how Harvard reforms doesn’t have to mean diffuse communication. McInnis devotes an entire section of her letter to this point, recognizing that Yale must “develop a sustained, long-term commitment to communicating about its mission, its decisions, and its reforms.”
Harvard — like Yale and higher education more broadly — have more than just a communications issue, but more accessible communication is an essential part of rebuilding trust. As simple as it may sound, that can start with a comprehensive webpage that is easy to find, navigate, and understand.
Ask 1636
Send us your Harvard and higher education questions!
Q: Does Harvard have a generative AI use policy?
At the University level, Harvard “supports responsible experimentation with generative AI tools” and provides overarching guidance like protecting confidential information, adhering to academic integrity policies, and taking responsibility for work product, including work generated with AI.
Each of Harvard’s Schools also maintains its own policy with more specifics. For example, Harvard College requires each instructor to publish an AI policy for their course; Harvard Law School generally permits AI the same way it would permit help from other people or non-AI tools (and bars it where it would be plagiarism); and Harvard Kennedy School says students may use GenAI to clarify concepts or brainstorm unless an instructor says otherwise, but generally can’t submit AI-generated work product as their own.
Events
New York, NY — April 30 from 7:00-9:00 pm ET: Meet HKS Dean Jeremy Weinstein at this HKS on the Road series event. Register here.
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FYIs
HMS Releases Open Inquiry Report Flags Campus Self-Censorship and Lab Power Dynamics
Harvard Medical School released a new report from its Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue Working Group (HMS OIWG) this week. The HMS OIWG found that faculty and students “frequently self-censor” on controversial topics, with speech particularly deterred in required courses that cover “politically and socially charged” topics like medical ethics, social medicine, health care policy, and epidemiology. The students who spoke with the HMS OIWG said this “stems more from perceived futility than fear” — “no one will change their minds.”
The report is a school-specific follow-up to Harvard’s University-wide Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue report from October 2024. HMS Dean George Daley (AB ’82) first convened the HMS OIWG in April 2025.
The 16-member group (core teaching plus affiliate hospital faculty) held 17 meetings and consulted groups including the Program in Medical Education executive committee, department chairs, the HMS Faculty Council, and clinical department executive committees. The group attempted to solicit student input via HMS’s ~40 Ed Reps (student representatives), but only two ultimately participated.
The report also notes it did not field a school-wide open inquiry climate survey for this report, but recommends recurring surveys going forward, with support from Harvard’s Office of Institutional Research and Analytics.
The HMS OIWG’s recommendations spanned classroom, lab, and clinical settings, including:
Encouraging informal “social compacts” around respectful debate
Expanding training and teaching materials (including with outside partners)
Using concrete classroom tools like anonymous polling and structured debate formats
Strengthening mentorship training to address power dynamics in labs
Clarifying expectations around activism in clinical settings
Holding more regular scholarly forums that model constructive disagreement
Creating new awards recognizing community members who advance OICD
Applying policies consistently and content-neutrally
In his message sharing the report with the HMS community, Daley wrote that he looked forward to “coordinating with standing groups” to implement the recommendations.
Harvard Graduate Student Strike Starts, Will Continue “Indefinitely” Until Negotiations Move Forward
The Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers (HGSU-UAW, HGSU) went on strike beginning this past Tuesday, April 21, pausing their teaching and research duties as negotiations with the University remain unresolved. (Read our Weekly Briefing for more on the issues being negotiated.)
As students picketed outside major classroom buildings like the Science Center or CGIS, some courses canceled lectures, while others shifted courses online. In the case of Economics 1011B, class proceeded in person but offered a recording for students who chose not to cross picket lines.
Next to HGSU picket lines, Socialist Equality Party organizers distributed flyers criticizing the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers’ (HUCTW) one-year agreement with Harvard. That agreement was signed roughly a week earlier and provides $2,300 raises for most workers. One flyer called on HUCTW members to reject the tentative agreement and “join hands with their brothers and sisters in HGSU-UAW in a unified fight for living wages, job security and an end to Harvard’s complicity in war and genocide.”
On the bargaining front, HGSU agreed to four additional negotiation sessions with Harvard on May 14, May 29, June 9, and June 23. An HGSU bargaining committee member indicated that if negotiations move forward “we will very happily call off the strike,” however “until that point, we will remain on strike indefinitely.”
District Judge Stearns Denies Harvard Motion To Tie Antisemitism Tile VI Case to Federal Funding Lawsuit
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns (JD ’76) denied Harvard’s motion to treat the Justice Department’s March 2026 Title VI antisemitism lawsuit against the University as “related” to Harvard’s April 2025 federal funding case, Harvard v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Accordingly, the new Title VI case will remain on Stearns’s docket rather than being reassigned to U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs, who presided over Harvard v. HHS.
In a short electronic order, Stearns wrote that he was “not persuaded” the case overlaps more with Harvard v. HHS than with the two antisemitism Title VI cases against Harvard that Stearns presided over: Students Against Antisemitism (brought by the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law) and Shabbos Kestenbaum (MTS ‘24), each settled last year. He noted that while the government wasn’t a party in those cases, “the overlap of factual and legal issues is much greater” with them than with Harvard v. HHS.
President Garber Spoke on Higher Ed Panel at AEI World Forum
The Crimson reported that Harvard President Alan Garber (AB ’76, PhD ‘82) spoke on March 13 at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) World Forum on Sea Island, Georgia, appearing on a higher education panel alongside Arizona State University President Michael Crow. The president of NYU was slated to join the panel as well, but did not attend.
According to a person familiar with the event, the discussion touched on the federal government’s actions against elite universities, the endowment tax increase, threats to international student enrollment, and the rising cost of higher education; Garber largely reiterated positions he has shared publicly elsewhere, such as his commitment to expanding viewpoint diversity on campus.
More News
More News at Harvard
The Crimson: “Harvard Kennedy School Plans Tech-Focused Shift in Preliminary 10-Year Plan”
The Crimson: “As Strike Deadline Looms, Manning Says Grad Union’s Title IX Demand Could Break Federal Law”
The Crimson: “As Yale Floats 3.0 Mean GPA, Harvard Faculty Leaders Defend Lighter-Touch Grading Proposal”
The Crimson: “Deming Calls Recruiting Timelines a ‘Collective Action Problem’ With No Easy Fix”
The Crimson: “Harvard Students’ AI Usage: By the Numbers”
The Crimson: “Deming Pledges to Cut Back-Office Functions Over Student Programming as College Faces Budget Cuts”
The Crimson: “Inside Harvard’s Global Pipeline: How a Handful of Schools Feed the College’s International Ranks”
The Crimson: “Harvard Kennedy School Floats Visiting Faculty Program in Donor Talks on Viewpoint Diversity”
The Crimson: “Harvard College Adds Required AI Module to Expository Writing Curriculum”
The Crimson: “Academic Workers Thought They Were Ready to Strike. Their Leaders Disagreed.”
Harvard Magazine: “Boston Board Approves Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus”
Harvard Ethnicity, Migration, Rights Committee: “EMR Chair Raquel Vega-Durán to Depart Harvard for University Seville in Spain”
Chronicle of Higher Education: “Elise Stefanik Goes Woke” — review of Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (AB ‘06) Poisoned Ivies by Alex Bronzini-Vender (AB ‘28)
City Journal: “An Antidote to Ivy League Decay” — Poisoned Ivies review
Real Clear Politics: “Harvard Business School Case Study Vilifies Israel” — by Stanford Hoover Institution Fellow and former Harvard Government professor Peter Berkowitz
Boston Globe: “More Harvard Business School students are opting for startups. Why?”
Office of Undergraduate Education: “An Improved Grade Cap Amendment” — alternate faculty grading proposal by FAS Physics professor Matthew Schwartz; response to alternate proposal by Government professor Alisha Holland (PhD ‘14) on behalf of the Subcommittee on Grading
The Crimson: “The Academic Case for Intellectual Diversity” — op-ed by School of Public Health professor Tyler VanderWeele (PhD ‘06)
Harvard Alumni for Free Speech: “Viewpoint Diversity at Harvard Must Be More Than a Hiring Initiative”
The Crimson: “Why We Strike” —op-ed by Harvard PhD candidates Laura Chen, Denish Jaswal, and Sara Speller
New York Post: “I was one of a few conservative professors at Harvard — here’s where the school went wrong” — op-ed by Government professor Harvey Mansfield (AB ’53, PhD ’61)
The Crimson: “Why Is Garber Talking Behind Harvard’s Back?” — op-ed by Adam Chiocco (AB ’27)
The Crimson: “Harvard Can’t Hire Its Way Into Viewpoint Diversity” — editorial by The Crimson Editorial Board
More News Beyond Harvard
The Argument: “Education research is weak and sloppy. Why?”
Vanderbilt University: “Professor, bestselling author Arthur C. Brooks to join faculty at Vanderbilt” — feat. HKS and HBS professor Arthur Brooks, who is leaving for Vanderbilt this summer
Columbia Spectator: “Columbia releases long-awaited report on University Senate review”
Columbia Spectator: “Columbia proposes reducing weight of A-pluses amid national reckoning with grade inflation”
Brown Daily Herald: “After AI cheating concerns, economics professors see in-person exams as a path forward”
Brown Daily Herald: “Herald poll finds nearly one in five Brown students receive accommodations through SAS”
CNN: “Elise Stefanik Joins CNN's State of the Union with Jake Tapper” — feat. Rep. Elise Stefanik (AB ‘06)
The Crimson: “EEOC Chair Says List of Jewish Penn Employees Needed for Civil Rights Enforcement”
The Free Press: “College Won’t Get Fixed. But It Also Won’t Disappear”
Heterodox Academy: “Changing DEI Requirements in Faculty Hiring”
Chronicle of Higher Education: “Why Pedagogy ‘Experts’ Are Wrong”
Wall Street Journal: “The Hidden Factor in Choosing a College: Did It Rain on Your Tour?”
SF Standard: “Yale in SF? The Ivy League is considering expansion to the city”
Cornell Sun: “NYT Columnist Bret Stephens On Institutional Neutrality, Zionism and The Role of Universities”
Daily Pennsylvanian: “Penn community criticizes ‘unsalvageable’ draft open expression guidelines at listening session”
Heterodox Academy: “Universities Have a Trust Problem. This President Is Trying to Fix It” — feat. Dartmouth president Sian Beilock
Yale Daily News: “Graduate programs reckon with reduced class sizes for next year”
Yale Daily News: “In uncertain job market, Yale students turn to new career pipelines”
Wall Street Journal: “College Graduates Are Finally Catching a Break in This Job Market”
MIT Free Speech Alliance: “Debating the Orthodoxy”
Chronicle of Higher Education: “Why Higher Ed Won’t Look Itself in the Mirror” — by Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education
Fortune: “Yale asked the right question. Now the rest of higher education owes an answer” — op-ed by Chairman and CEO of Covista, Steve Beard