Institutional Voice Guidelines

In spring 2024, Harvard established the Institutional Voice Working Group to consider whether and when our institution should issue official statements on publicly salient issues. The Working Group’s report concluded that the University and its leaders should not issue official statements about public matters that do not directly impact the University’s core function as an academic institution. Please see Institutional Voice Principles for more information on the report and associated FAQs.

In addition to Harvard SEAS policies, the Harvard Office of the Associate Provost for Student Affairs maintains a list of key University-wide Student Affairs Policies. 

For details on the Institutional Voice Principles, please refer to the official document. For ease of access, please see below for an excerpt of the document:

1. First, the integrity and credibility of the institution are compromised when the university speaks officially on matters outside its institutional area of expertise. Faculty members, speaking for themselves, have expertise in their respective domains of knowledge, and they may often speak about what they know. In so doing, however, they do not speak for the university. The university’s leaders are hired for their skill in leading an institution of higher education, not their expertise in public affairs. When speaking in their official roles, therefore, they should restrict themselves to matters within their area of institutional expertise and responsibility: the running of a university.
2. Second, if the university and its leaders become accustomed to issuing official statements about matters beyond the core function of the university, they will inevitably come under intense pressure to do so from multiple, competing sides on nearly every imaginable issue of the day. This is the reality of contemporary public life in an era of social media and political polarization. Those pressures, coming from inside and outside the university, will distract energy and attention from the university’s essential purpose. The university 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.
3. Third, if the university adopts an official position on an issue beyond its core function, it will be understood to side with one perspective or another on that issue. Given the diversity of viewpoints within the university, choosing a side, or appearing to do so can undermine the inclusivity of the university community. It may make it more difficult for some members of the community to express their views when they differ from the university’s official position. The best way for the university to acknowledge pressing public events is by redoubling intellectual engagement through classes, conferences, scholarship, and teaching that draw on the expert knowledge of its faculty.