A chaotic and controversial stretch at Harvard University has led to a dubious distinction from a free speech watchdog group.
The Cambridge campus has received the “Lifetime Censorship Award” from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. This comes after Harvard came in last on FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings — achieving a worst-ever score last year.
That 2023 ranking happened before Harvard was consumed by the Israel-Hamas war, leading to a divided campus and the president coming under fire. Media outlets started to look into then-President Claudine Gay’s research, and Harvard reportedly threatened the New York Post with a defamation lawsuit if the Post ran a story about Gay’s plagiarism allegations.
“So much for placing ‘a high priority on freedom of speech’ — or freedom of the press for that matter,” FIRE wrote about Harvard. “Gay resigned on Jan. 2, after more than 40 allegations of plagiarism came to light.”
The free speech group also noted that Harvard has punished faculty and students for their speech.
“School administrators drove out lecturer Carole Hooven for arguing that biological sex is real,” FIRE wrote. “It rescinded a fellowship for former Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth over his purported ‘anti-Israel bias.’
“It effectively fired an economics professor for an op-ed he published in India,” the group added. “It canceled a professor’s course on policing following student uproar. It fired professor Ronald Sullivan from his deanship after students protested his role on Harvey Weinstein’s criminal defense team.”
Harvard joins Georgetown University, Yale University, Syracuse University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and DePaul University on FIRE’s list of Lifetime Censorship Award recipients.
“It’s past time Harvard truly commits to its ostensible truth-seeking mission and the principles of free speech and academic freedom that make it possible,” the group wrote. “But that may be wishful thinking, the triumph of hope over experience.”
Meanwhile, FIRE released its list of “America’s 10 Worst Censors” on Tuesday. This list included the “hypocritical testimony” of Gay and other college presidents in front of Congress about antisemitism on campus.
FIRE also took aim at Brandeis University for unrecognizing its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine amid the Israel-Hamas war.
“This year’s list goes to show that no one is safe from the possibility of censorship,” said FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff. “Americans of all ages and professions are being pushed into a corner when trying to express themselves freely: Shut up or be shut up. Censorship is an abuse of authority and a poor substitute for honest dialogue, and FIRE is here to fight it every step of the way.”