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The Harvard Salient’s board of directors issued a cease and desist order instructing members of the conservative student magazine to stop publishing under the Salient’s name and representing themselves as leaders of the organization, the board announced on Monday.
The board has also commissioned a law firm to investigate “decisions around the publication of certain offensive material as well as disturbing internal actions and communications that have been brought to our attention,” according to the Monday statement.
The announcement came one week after Richard Y. Rodgers ’28, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, said that the student publication would remain active in the wake of the board’s initial decision to suspend the organization.
Rodgers wrote last week that the Salient would continue to operate under “legitimate editorial leadership,” arguing that the board’s decision to suspend the club was an “unauthorized usurpation of power” in violation of the Salient’s bylaws.
But in a Wednesday text to The Crimson, Rodgers wrote that student leaders agreed to abide by the cease and desist order, though he maintained that statements made by the board of directors without approval by student leadership violate the organization’s bylaws.
“Like the original statement from the board, this one was, I believe, also made in violation of our bylaws and without the unanimity of all members of the Board,” Rodgers wrote.
“We are attempting to negotiate a peaceful resolution and have been for a week,” he added. “Every attempt to extend an olive branch has fallen through but we remain committed to doing so.”
Rodgers declined to provide additional details regarding his conversations with the board of directors, writing that he could not “get into specifics because they are confidential legal communications.” Several board members did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday evening.
The board cited concerns about both the Salient’s publication decisions, saying it had printed material “wholly inimical to the conservative principles for which the magazine stands,” and its internal culture in its initial suspension of the publication’s operations, announced in late October. Board members had received “deeply disturbing and credible complaints about the broader culture of the organization,” the board’s October statement read.
The board has remained quiet on the details of the complaints and the specific material that it found offensive. It has also not commented on Rodgers’s allegation that the board violated the Salient’s bylaws.
The Salient came under fire after its September edition included an article with language that echoed a line from a speech Adolf Hitler gave to Reichstag delegates in 1939. Rodgers stood by the piece and wrote that its author and editors did not intentionally quote Hitler.
Harvard has also stayed quiet on the dispute, with College Dean David J. Deming declining to comment on the article in an October interview with The Crimson.
On Monday, the board wrote that it hoped to “share further information as soon as it’s feasible.”
“We would like to thank the supporters of the Harvard Salient for their patience during this time,” the board added.
—Staff writer Samuel A. Church can be reached at samuel.church@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @samuelachurch.
—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.
