(TheConservativeTimes.org) – Harvard University has announced that they will no longer be speaking out on public or social matters that don’t impact their institution’s “core function.”
This decision follows the unrest at college campuses regarding the Israel-Hamas War, which has caused a lot of controversy. This is following guidance that was proposed by the Institutional Voice Working Group, a group that Harvard established to help consider how the Ivy League university should address “publicly salient” issues.
According to the group, they gathered input from each school at the university, the faculty, staff, and students, as well as an online poll and an email address where people could submit their thoughts on how it should be handled.
The group recommends that the university not “issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function.”
They continued to say that the report found that “such statements risk compromising the ‘integrity and credibility’ of our academic mission and may undermine open inquiry and academic freedom by making it ‘more difficult for some members of the community to express their views when they differ from the university’s official position.’”
The report continues, “Harvard is not a government, tasked with engaging the full range of foreign and domestic policy issues, and its leaders are not, and must not be, selected for their personal political beliefs.”
The months of tension following the Israel-Hamas war, and the multiple statements from Harvard and other universities, led the university to avoid involvement in political or social matters.
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