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Posts displaying indifference to conservatives’ deaths. Calling police officers racist and evil. These are just some of Dunster House resident dean Gregory K. Davis’ public comments.

To no one’s surprise, the Board excuses these comments and believes Davis should stay in his position — a position that requires the trust and confidence of all students and requires him to be a source of support. I disagree. His prior comments should have disqualified him from his position in the first place, and his hate-filled public posts while serving as resident dean should have earned him an ouster. The Board cannot find the courage to stand up on behalf of the many students who don’t share his politics, so I must dissent.

To be clear, Davis has the right to his political beliefs, however objectionable I may find them. I might think that everyone should express sympathy at the death of fellow humans and condemn political violence, but people are free to disagree. And the Board is correct insofar as students and professors should be free to share their political views.

But because of a resident dean’s unique role in student life, one must consider the effects that their political pronouncements — especially extreme ones — might have on students’ ability to fully rely on them when determining what is acceptable for them to publicly proclaim.

Advocating hate surely is not. Someone cannot simultaneously have expressed such inflammatory views and hold the role of an undergraduate house’s resident dean — especially in Harvard’s era of institutional neutrality. That those who hired Davis as resident dean somehow missed his public posts, considering his hiring occurred well after Harvard was thrust in the public spotlight as a leftist cesspool, and even after Harvard publicly adopted its policy of institutional neutrality, is a damning indictment on the hiring process for University leadership positions.

The job of a house’s resident dean is to support students’ academic and personal wellbeing. This necessarily requires someone who students — regardless of their background, beliefs, and identity — feel comfortable going to during some of the lowest points in their college career. I, for one, would not feel confident that Davis would have my best interests in mind given my political beliefs.

Moreover, what about students who have family members who are law enforcement officers, or those who want to pursue a career in law enforcement? Can anyone claim with a straight face that, based on his public pronouncements, those students can have full trust in someone who has made comments as hate-filled as Davis?

Though inexcusable in any case, I can only hope that Davis’s hiring committee somehow failed to take even the briefest glance at his social media and were thus unaware of these posts. I hope that, given the spotlight on Harvard and its own self-proclaimed policy of avoiding political issues, had they seen these posts, they would not have considered him qualified for the role of resident dean.

Moreover, his posts since assuming the role have continued trends of hateful language. The Harvard Salient reported that on June 8, 2024 — while serving as interim resident dean before his elevation to the permanent role — Davis posted on his Instagram with the caption “Wishing everyone a great Pride. Remember to love everyone and hate the police.”

Should a Harvard dean be allowed to publicly advocate for hatred of a certain group of people? I doubt the Board would be so accommodating of Davis if he advocated for hatred of immigrants — as it shouldn’t. Yet, perhaps explicably, in this case they are.

House resident deans shouldn’t advocate hate towards anyone — full stop. To do so prior to their appointment should be disqualifying; to do so while they are supposedly supporting their students’ wellbeing should result in resignation. Although I thought this would be an easy thing for the Board to say, disappointingly, it is not. I wonder why.

Henry P. Moss IV ’26, an Associate Editorial Editor, is a History concentrator in Eliot House.

Dissenting Opinions: Occasionally, The Crimson Editorial Board is divided about the opinion we express in a staff editorial. In these cases, dissenting board members have the opportunity to express their opposition to staff opinion.