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The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression free speech rankings — which place Harvard dead last — have been downplayed by University leadership. But let me tell you: Harvard deserves it.

According to the University’s 2024 senior survey, only one-third of the graduating class feel comfortable expressing their opinions about controversial topics on campus in general, and nearly half are hesitant to do so even in a supposedly sacrosanct classroom setting. Especially concerning was the ideological split among students: The vanishingly few conservatives on campus were over twice as likely to report not being comfortable discussing controversial topics as their liberal peers.

While unfortunate for my educational experience, the current campus climate leaves me doubtful that this will change any time soon.

The report’s contents should not be remotely surprising to anyone who has paid attention over the past 18 months, considering that just last year, we were continuously rocked by protest after protest.

For those who do not appreciate the national media attention, simply avoiding the protests was not enough. Tensions on campus ran so high that it felt risky to express an opinion about anything that might even appear remotely controversial for fear of being labelled genocidal, racist, or bigoted.

Although tensions have somewhat abated this year, a culture that stifles any speech not in line with leftist orthodoxy nonetheless remains.

Particularly egregious was last semester’s protest outside of Harvard Hillel in which a group of students chanted “Zionists not welcome here.” Instead of attempting dialogue with diverging perspectives, the speech climate on campus permits — and encourages — those with the most extreme viewpoints to call for those whose views are not sufficiently leftist to not be allowed to exist on campus.

Even outside of the excessive protests, there have been actions to silence dissenting voices. A recent opinion piece sharply rebuked the Harvard Kennedy School for merely hosting an event that discusses the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. Although the authors claim to be unopposed to conversations about government deregulation, they object to engaging with actors they deem not to be operating in good faith.

This caveat offers me little comfort. In the eyes of the campus speech police, it seems a precondition for good-faith engagement is a lack of any sort of disagreement at all.

What, for example, would be the verdict on a panel discussing the recent bans on transgender women participating in women’s college athletics? The Editorial Board provides a clear answer (in the event that someone supports them): supposedly “bad-faith” attacks and pure political scapegoating — surely not anything worth reasoned debate.

It does not matter that a vast majority of Americans — and a plurality of Democrats — believe that people should only play on sports teams that match their birth gender; such strident language indicates a self-assuredness incompatible with even countenancing that reasonable people can disagree. Implicit in this arrogance is a belief that dissent can only stem from bigotry or ignorance.

In this climate, it is no wonder that students on campus are so afraid to speak their minds, particularly if they are conservative. Harvard’s campus climate is so liberal, so intolerant of opposing views that it is safer for conservatives to keep their views to themselves rather than risk ridicule.

Although the College’s new Intellectual Vitality Initiatives seek to remedy the lack of intellectual discourse on campus, I am skeptical that it will achieve significant results. I applaud the extensive efforts made to encourage conversations across opposing viewpoints, but I remain concerned that the lack of ideological diversity inevitably inhibits the amount of opportunities for students to put these theories into practice.

One can only have a truly intellectually vital campus — one in which all students are unafraid to share their views — when there is fundamental disagreement on key issues in the first place.

Perhaps the University could learn from former Harvard Law School Dean and current Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and make a pointed effort to welcome more conservative faculty members in order to uplift conservative student and faculty perspectives.

Unless Harvard makes serious changes to the campus environment, nothing will change. The University will remain overwhelmingly liberal, with the most extreme voices — those that are most interested in silencing any dissent — dominating the discussion.

Students will remain fearful of expressing controversial opinions, and their educational experience will continue to suffer.

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