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Harvard Medical School administrators removed from consideration a potential speaker for the school’s 2024 Class Day out of concern that pro-Palestine messages she had posted on social media would be “polarizing,” according to a document obtained by The Crimson.
The document was sent to the Department of Health and Human Services by Harvard in response to its Title VI antidiscrimination investigation, which began in February, into pro-Palestine activism at the event. The 133-page exchange between Harvard’s lawyers and HHS officials reveals extensive contingency plans developed by the HMS administration — including some made just days in advance of the ceremonies — to respond if student speakers made unscripted pro-Palestine remarks.
The strategies included cutting the livestream, changing the microphone volume, and even ending the ceremony altogether. Administrators also designated trained de-escalators to diffuse potential protests and pasted a premade statement at the top of HMS Dean George Q. Daley ’82’s speech for him to deliver if speakers veered off script into pro-Palestine speech.
“I acknowledge your right to protest … I see you, and I hear you. Harvard’s longstanding commitment is that protest and dissent can be valuable forms of expression. However, today is about celebrating the HMS and HSDM Class of 2024 and their accomplishments. I ask for the courtesy to continue with our program. Thank you,” read the remarks Daley was prepared to deliver.
In sharing extensive details about the school’s precautionary measures, Harvard aimed to convince the HHS that it did not violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act — and took significant steps to protect Jewish students in the event of disruptions to the 2024 Commencement ceremonies, which took place at the height of a wave of pro-Palestine campus activism.
According to the document, the HMS administration first learned that students might stage a protest when an HMS faculty member emailed Daley the day before Class Day warning him that graduates were planning to go off script.
Over the course of the next day, the Medical School devised extensive measures to mitigate the risk of pro-Palestine activism during the event, including the plans for cutting the livestream and potentially suspending the ceremony midway through.
Before then, administrators had reviewed student speeches and repeatedly reminded speakers to stick to their approved remarks. The Medical School also put significant consideration into choosing the Class Day speaker “to avoid the impression that HMS was aligning with a public stance on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.”
Initially, the school was considering two potential Class Day speakers: Uche A. Blackstock ’99, an emergency physician and advocate against racial disparities in medicine who graduated from HMS in 2005, and William Flanary, a medical comedian.
The school opted against inviting Flanary because it thought his humor “would set an inappropriate tone.” And when officials realized Blackstock had posted several pro-Palestine messages on Instagram, they decided against selecting her too.
“She was removed from consideration out of concern that her presence or comments could be polarizing,” lawyers for Harvard wrote in a March 19 submission to HHS.
When neither candidate was approved, the Medical School selected Melissa L. Gilliam, the incoming president of Boston University, who graduated from HMS in 1993.
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The submission to HHS also disputed certain claims by the agency about the nature of the pro-Palestine signage at the HMS commencement.
When HHS first notified Harvard of its investigation in February, the government said it was opening the proceedings because of a Jan. 27 New York Post article that alleged graduations at Harvard and other top universities were “plagued by antisemitism” and “pro-terror antics.”
The article specifically pointed to “three-part stoles consisting of the Palestinian flag, a keffiyeh and an empty map of Israel, with some with the word Palestine or ‘Jerusalem Is Ours’ written in Arabic adjacent to the map,” which, the report claimed, were displayed at HMS commencement.
The Harvard document acknowledged that some pro-Palestine signs and pins were displayed during the HMS commencement ceremony. But it denied that the three-part stoles were ever worn by HMS students, saying that none of the video footage and more than 1,000 photographs taken at the event showed any HMS students wearing those specific stoles.
The document also said that the Medical School did not receive any complaints related to the Class Day ceremonies and that students only showed pro-Palestine imagery briefly during the proceedings.
“The conduct was neither severe nor pervasive and Harvard was neither indifferent nor did it respond unreasonably. Accordingly, there was no violation of Title VI,” the submission read.
The Medical School has been the subject of scrutiny over both complaints of antisemitism and the suppression of pro-Palestine speech. In April 2024, students at HMS and the School of Dental Medicine accused the administration of censorship after pro-Palestine imagery was removed from a student music video. And in January, HMS canceled a planned lecture and panel with Gazan patients after people raised concerns that it would be one-sided and wouldn’t hear from Israelis impacted by the war. The panel took place later in the spring semester.
HMS was not the only school whose commencement ceremony was marked by pro-Palestine protests during the turbulent end to the spring 2024 semester. Harvard considered moving the University’s commencement proceedings to Harvard Stadium if participants in the pro-Palestine encampment remained in Harvard Yard through the day of the ceremony.
And the ceremony itself, which took place in Tercentenary Theatre as planned, was overshadowed by protests after the Harvard Corporation denied degrees to 13 seniors who participated in the encampment. Hundreds of attendees walked out as Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 spoke.
Two student speakers veered off script to condemn the withholding of degrees, and both drew standing ovations.
“As I stand here today, I must take a moment to recognize my peers — the 13 undergraduates in the class of 2024 that will not graduate today,” undergraduate English address speaker Shruthi Kumar ’24 said to thunderous applause. “I am deeply disappointed by the intolerance for freedom of speech and their right to civil disobedience on campus.”
—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.
—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.
