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Harvard University’s president took a jab at the school’s faculty in a recent podcast, saying that activism in the classroom has led to student fears of speaking freely.
“That’s what had shifted, and that’s where I think we went wrong,” Harvard President Alan Garber said during a podcast released on Dec. 16.
“Because think about it, if a professor in a classroom says, this is what I believe about this issue, how many students — some of you probably would be prepared to deal with this, but most people wouldn’t — how many students would actually be willing to go toe to toe against a professor who’s expressed a firm view about a controversial issue?” he continued.
Garber appeared on the Identity/Crisis Podcast, hosted by the Shalom Hartman Institute. He and podcast host Yehuda Kurtzer discussed freedom of political discourse on Harvard’s campus, some of it in the context of antisemitism that has plagued Ivy League universities in recent years.
Harvard President Alan Garber has acknowledged issues with viewpoint diversity on campus. (Rick Friedman / AFP via Getty Images)
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“So some of that happened, and I’m pleased to say that I think there’s real movement to restore balance in teaching and to bring back the idea that you really need to be objective in the classroom,” Garber said.
Garber explained that ideological freedom and the freedom to express ideas was a foundational concept during his college years, but noted that as younger faculty have been hired, that former staple of higher education has changed.
He railed against pushing opinions on students, and rather said that the job of the university is to teach facts.
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“What we need to arm our students with is a set of facts and a set of analytic tools and cultivation of rigor in analyzing these issues,” he said.
Gate 1, the Newell Gate pedestrian entrance to Harvard University’s Soldiers Field Athletic Area, on Oct. 9, 2023. (A.P. Cortizas Jr./Getty Images)
“It is not about how to sling slogans or how to advance a particular political perspective. People will do that, and we want to make sure that the education that we give them will enable them to do that with some real authority,” he continued. “But we’re not about the activism. We’re not about pushing particular points of view. Other than that, you should be logical, firmly grounded in the evidence and rigorous in how you approach these issues.”
Garber said that Harvard’s mission is excellence in teaching, learning and research and to be excellent in those areas, “we have to be capable of speaking with one another, freely hearing one another, risking being rejected or saying something offensive, if that’s necessary, to be able to have effective communication.”
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In 2025, Harvard found itself at the center of controversy over free speech and radical leftism on campus.
In one example, Fox News Digital exposed a 2018 panel where faculty members praised the keynote speaker — a far-left Antifa activist and professor at another university — who advocated for potential political violence at the school’s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights. Video of the panel was subsequently removed from YouTube, where it had been available to view for seven years.
The school remains in a protracted battle with the Trump administration over antisemitism on campus. The administration pulled $2.7 billion in federal funding, setting up a court battle with the Ivy League institution.
Harvard faculty and staff hold signs from inside Harvard Yard during a news conference by faculty supporters of the Harvard Out of Palestine coalition outside Harvard Yard. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
A federal court ordered the administration to release the funds back to Harvard, leading to a December appeal by the administration.
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Just last week, a professor who taught at Harvard for 40 years slammed the school for its ideological homogeneity after finishing his last semester, saying that graduate programs were denying White male applicants on racial grounds and that Western civilization courses were being eradicated.
“In reviewing graduate student applicants in the fall of 2020 I came across an outstanding prospect who was a perfect fit for our program,” James Hankins wrote in Compact Magazine. “In past years this candidate would have risen immediately to the top of the applicant pool. In 2021, however, I was told informally by a member of the admissions committee that ‘that’ (meaning admitting a white male) was ‘not happening this year.'”
Harvard did not return a request for comment.