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A group of Harvard undergraduates, faculty, and alumni have been quietly meeting over the past two years to examine what they see as a lack of free idea exchange at the College.
Committee member Shira Z. Hoffer ’25 wrote in a statement that the group welcomed those who “feel like Harvard could be doing better in striving toward veritas.” “The purpose of the committee is to brainstorm and implement ways to increase what we are calling ‘intellectual vitality’ on campus,” Hoffer wrote. “We believe that it is not just possible but crucial to engage with dissenting viewpoints, as long as we do so respectfully, and it is a passion for this engagement which brings us together.”
Jake Offenhartz
Associated Press
Excerpt: New York University said it would deny a diploma to a student who used a graduation speech to condemn Israel’s attacks on Palestinians and what he described as U.S. “complicity in this genocide.”
Logan Rozos’s speech Wednesday for graduating students of NYU’s Gallatin School sparked waves of condemnation from pro-Israel groups, who demanded the university take aggressive disciplinary action against him.
Alice Speri
The Guardian
Excerpt: Parker Hovis was four courses away from getting his computer science degree from the University of Florida when he was arrested along with several other students at a pro-Palestinian protest on campus last spring. While the charges against him were dismissed and a school conduct committee recommended only minor punishment – a form of probation – the university administration suspended him for three years. He’ll be required to reapply if he wants to come back after that.
Hovis, who has since left Florida and is working to pay off his student loans despite never graduating, is one of more than 1,000 students or student groups that were targeted by their universities for punishment between 2020 and 2024 over their speech, according to a report published today by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire). About 63% of them were ultimately punished.
Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: All the pieces of House Republicans’ plan to cut trillions in federal spending are now public, and if the package becomes law, colleges and universities could face crippling repercussions, higher education experts say.
“It is a full-out assault on the ability of students—especially low-income students—to access and afford higher education,” said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education. “It will have a dramatically negative impact, not just on higher ed, but on the whole population.”
