Updated July 1, 2024 at 11:52 pm
Harvard University Dean of Letters Hopi E. Hoekstra said Monday that the university will not impose sanctions on faculty who criticize the university’s administration, strongly distancing himself from an op-ed written by one of his top deans.
Hoekstra’s comments come after Lawrence D. Bobo, dean of the Harvard School of Social Sciences, suggested last month that there should be “sanctions-based restrictions” on faculty speech. Bobo’s op-ed criticized prominent professors who have criticized the university’s administration during one of its most turbulent periods in decades.
Bobo immediately drew criticism from Harvard faculty and free speech advocates, who argued that restricting faculty speech was an infringement of academic freedom and would have a chilling effect on dissent. The op-ed backfired nationwide, drawing attention and leading Harvard faculty to call on Hoekstra to publicly distance himself from Bobo’s claims.
Two weeks later, Hoekstra relented.
“In recent days, several people have expressed serious concerns about whether FAS faculty should be disciplined for criticizing the university or its leadership,” Hoekstra said in an email to FAS faculty on Monday. “My answer is a resounding no.”
In a June 15 op-ed, Bobo argued that faculty members who make unprofessional statements, such as harshly criticizing the university in an “inflammatory” way, should be punished.[s] Criticizing “outside actors” or encouraging students to participate in protests that violate Harvard University policy is prohibited.
“Bobo did not clarify the nature of the sanctions he had in mind,” Jeffrey S. Fryer, co-chair of Harvard’s Council on Academic Freedom, wrote in a rebuttal published in The Atlantic.
“But any sanctions for the comments he mentioned would be a frontal attack on academic freedom,” he added.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board went so far as to call Bobo “Harvard’s dean of speech,” writing that “his position as dean at Harvard is particularly problematic because it gives him power over faculty he criticizes.”
Bobo previously sought to allay concerns that he would use his power to restrict speech in a June 25 email to professors in his social sciences department.
“In my role as dean, I am bound by the policies and governance structures of the university,” Bobo wrote. “With regard to issues of speech, I have no authority to act outside those policies and structures, and I would not seek to do so.”
Despite Bobo’s conciliatory tone in his email, he did not back down from the op-ed, but he did not explicitly address calls for sanctions, instead shifting the focus to the idea of university responsibility.
“The past year, which has brought unprecedented attention to Harvard from the media, government, and those outside the university community, has raised questions for me about how we, as faculty, should think about the institutional implications of what we say about Harvard,” he wrote.
In his email to faculty, Hoekstra cited the FAS Free Speech Guidelines and the University’s Rights and Responsibilities Resolution, documents that govern Harvard’s response to protests and controversial speech and recognize the value of freedom of expression.
“Engaging criticism constructively makes our community smarter and stronger and leads to policy change where appropriate,” Hoekstra wrote. “Such engagement advances our shared mission of teaching, research, and service.”
—Staff writer Tilly R. Robinson can be reached at tilly.robinson@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X. Tilly Robin.
—Staff writer Neil H. Shah can be reached at neil.shah@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X. translation:.
