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{shortcode-24643cedbe14221289878261864001a8ceef067a}ne hour before interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced that Harvard Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82 will serve as interim provost, Manning hastily called a faculty meeting. He informed colleagues of Garber’s decision but assured them that he intended to return as HLS dean after his stint with the University was completed.

Nobody really believed him.

Manning, who was appointed on March 1 as the interim chief academic officer, is now at the center of the Harvard leadership sweepstakes that began after the resignation of Claudine Gay. As Garber’s number two and a finalist in the last search, Manning is a major contender for the presidency, which potentially makes his provostship a brief stay in the waiting room before getting the top job.

Or, Manning may be offered the provost job permanently. Harvard’s presidential search committee may reach the same conclusion that it did in 2022: a conservative former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin G. Scalia is not the right person to lead Harvard as it crafts new admissions procedures after its affirmative action policies were struck down as unconstitutional.

But in either scenario, Manning is unlikely to return to HLS — at least not yet, and perhaps not as dean.

“This is my 37th year as a law professor,” legal history professor Michael J. Klarman said. “I would be surprised if John Manning returns to the Law School.”

But there are other ways the leadership lottery could play out and Manning is far from the only contender. Manning’s statement that he intends to return to HLS may be an effort to push his presidential candidacy — a subtle warning to the search committee that without the top job, he will return to lead his own fiefdom instead.

A Top Presidential Contender

Even before Manning’s appointment as interim provost, many suspected that he would be a top contender in the search for Harvard’s 31st president.

Alongside Tomiko Brown-Nagin — dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study — Manning was an internal finalist in the past presidential search process, which ultimately culminated in Gay’s selection in December 2022.

Several professors at the Law School said they believe Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 and the presidential search committee would be wise to make Manning president.

HLS professor Holger Spamann said that among the faculty there is a “widespread feeling that John Manning will be an actual candidate for president of the University.”

“I think it will be a good move for the University to make him president,” Spamann added.

Richard H. Fallon Jr., an HLS professor who has focused on constitutional law and federal courts law, said he believed Manning has been a “terrific” dean for the school.

“If folks in the University hierarchy decide that he could do more good for the University there, then I would certainly applaud that decision,” Fallon said.

While Manning’s conservative views could hurt his chances at the Harvard presidency, they could also be an asset at a time when the University is under fire from the right.

Conservative activist Christopher F. Rufo has attacked Harvard’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and levied accusations of plagiarism against Black female scholars at the University. Meanwhile, House Republicans have launched an investigation into Harvard’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and its efforts to combat antisemitism on campus.

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Manning’s identity will also inevitably factor into the presidential search committee’s considerations.

He is Jewish at a time when the University is defending itself against accusations that antisemitism is running rampant on campus. Manning was also the first person in his family to graduate college and attend law school.

But Manning’s selection to lead the University would also give Harvard its 29th white male president and would be viewed by some as conceding defeat to critics who baselessly claimed that Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, was chosen primarily for her identity.

Klarman said that it “would be a mistake for Harvard to appoint a white male conservative because it seems like capitulating to pressure from the outside,” referencing the criticism from major donors and politicians that contributed to Gay’s ouster.

“I would do nothing to suggest that they have any real influence with Harvard University,” he added.

Some faculty members said they were concerned about the current lack of gender diversity in the University’s top administration and expressed hope that several women will be candidates in the later stages of the presidential search.

Still, it is possible that Manning’s biggest obstacle to the Harvard presidency is his genuine love for the Law School.

At the March 1 HLS faculty meeting, Manning cried as he talked about his devotion to the Law School and expressed gratitude for his colleagues.

HLS professor Noah R. Feldman said that Manning “did not see the deanship as a step to some further job.”

“He genuinely loved being dean and would have been perfectly happy for that to be the most distinguished institutional position he held in his career,” Feldman added.

‘Straight Shooter’

At the Law School, Manning was known as a “straight shooter” who enjoyed broad support with his faculty, but kept distance from the HLS student body and rarely engaged with the media.

While Manning has sought to avoid some of the forward-facing responsibilities of a Harvard dean, he has earned respect for his work behind the scenes to bridge divides between faculty members and increase ideological diversity at HLS.

Manning himself joined the school in 2004, when former HLS Dean Elena Kagan recruited him as a part of a concerted effort to increase political diversity at HLS by hiring more conservative professors.

Harvard has been frequently criticized over the fact that its faculty is overwhelmingly liberal. In The Crimson’s 2023 survey of members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, more than 77 percent of respondents identified as either “very liberal” or “liberal.”

But even as the school has grown more ideologically diverse under Manning’s tenure, some HLS affiliates said that his administration’s leadership — including his deputy deans — was almost entirely white.

Still, faculty’s diversity has increased overall since Manning took over as dean. In 2017, only 14 percent of tenured HLS faculty were people of color. In 2024, 20 percent of the tenured faculty are people of color.

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Former HLS Dean Martha L. Minow wrote in a statement that she admires Manning’s “devotion to rigorous attention to all points of view and capacity to bring diverse groups together.”

Randall L. Kennedy, an HLS professor known for his scholarship on the regulation of race relations, wrote that Manning “has a marvelous ‘can do’ attitude, listens carefully, acts fairly, and shares his own extraordinary buoyancy to keep spirits high.”

“I have every confidence that he offers wise and energetic leadership at this fraught moment,” Kennedy added.

Manning has taken steps to promote a more social and intellectual community amongst faculty members. He opened a faculty lounge at HLS and created new programs such as faculty workshops and Supreme Court lunches, where professors meet to discuss recent rulings from the court.

Since the start of January, however, Manning has repeatedly canceled regular weekly meetings with the HLS faculty. Manning’s March 1 announcement that he would take a leave of absence from the school was the first faculty meeting of 2024.

HLS spokesperson Jeff Neal wrote in an emailed statement that the standing faculty meetings are canceled on a weekly basis “when there is no faculty business to conduct.”

Meanwhile, more than a dozen Law School students said that Manning does not maintain a large presence on campus and is relatively unknown to many students.

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Manning’s tendency to keep a low profile faced criticism from some affiliates in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7 when Harvard found itself at the center of controversy.

After the alleged assault of a Jewish student by another HLS student, over 94 Jewish alumni signed an open letter calling on Manning to take action to protect Jewish students.

At this time, Manning also faced calls from the student body to issue a statement condemning the harassment and doxxing of HLS’s Muslim students from right-wing groups in response to pro-Palestinian activism.

Swapnil “Swap” Agrawal, the HLS student government co-president, wrote in a statement that last fall the student government had “repeatedly asked Dean Manning to protect students from doxxing, harassment, and disciplinary consequences in retaliation for their speech.”

Manning and the HLS administration did not issue a public statement in response to either of these requests.

“I hope he keeps students’ requests in mind as he shapes University policies on academic freedom and civil discourse,” Agrawal wrote.

‘A Calming Effect’

Over spring break, Manning moved his desk into Massachusetts Hall where he will now work closely with Garber to guide Harvard out of its most tumultuous period in decade.

That assignment will consist of leading Harvard’s efforts to explore institutional neutrality, helping win back the support of disillusioned donors, and crafting policies to ensure faculty members are equipped to lead difficult classroom discussions even as the campus remains sharply divided.

In a March FAS meeting shortly after his appointment as interim provost, Manning said that he will take point on efforts to explore institutional neutrality and intended to prioritize fostering academic freedom at the University.

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Garber described Manning as “an ideal individual” to lead efforts toward institutional neutrality, a nod to his leadership at the Law School where Manning made a point of not commenting on political topics.

At HLS, Manning initiated the Rappaport Forum, a lecture series dedicated to fostering civil discussions on divisive issues and implemented “Chatham House Rules,” a non-attribution policy to safeguard student opinions from external scrutiny.

Feldman said he expected Manning’s efforts at institutional neutrality to be similar to his approach as dean when “he really bent over backwards to avoid committing the Law School, through him, to any particularly contentious position.”

Several prominent alumni and donors said they welcomed Manning’s appointment and said they expected it will help bring “calmness” to an institution that desperately needs it.

“Of all the deans, he is somebody who stands out on the short list of people who are well regarded,” Michael A. Allen, a donor to the Law School, said.

Paul A. Buttenweiser ’60, a longtime donor to Harvard and a former member of the Board of Overseers, said that Manning “will have a calming effect on many of the alumni who are upset with one thing or another.”

Peter L. Malkin ’55, a prominent University donor for whom the Malkin Athletic Center is named, said he believed Manning’s elevation to the provostship was “a step in the right direction” for Harvard.

Malkin compared Manning’s appointment to the selection of Derek C. Bok as Harvard’s 25th president in 1971.

Bok was serving as HLS dean when he was tapped to succeed Nathan M. Pusey, Class of 1928, as president of Harvard. Pusey’s tenure came to a premature end as the campus was deeply divided over the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

“The test will be what actions are taken by President Garber and Provost Manning to correct the problems that have existed,” Malkin added.

—Staff writer S. Mac Healey can be reached at mac.healey@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @MacHealey.

—Staff writer Saketh Sundar can be reached at saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @saketh_sundar.