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The Harvard Undergraduate Association planned and publicized an event co-sponsored by Les Adore, an unrecognized student group, before disaffiliating with the group after a Wednesday comment request from The Crimson.
The co-sponsorship was likely a violation of the College’s policies for recognized student organizations, which state that “student organizations may not co-sponsor on-campus events with external or unrecognized organizations.”
The HUA’s reversal follows the College’s April 3 decision to place the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee on probation after hosting a rally with the unrecognized student group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine.
The same day as the PSC’s probation, the Trump administration sent a letter to Harvard demanding immediate governance changes. The list of requests included a section titled “Student group accountability,” stating that both recognized and unrecognized student groups “must be held accountable for violations of Harvard policy.”
The HUA’s “Community Conversations” event is scheduled to take place Thursday at 6 p.m., featuring discussion of “what it means to be Harvard students in uncertain times.”
Though the HUA is its primary organizer, the event was co-sponsored by seven student organizations — which until Wednesday evening included Les Adore, a “Harvard-based” production group founded in 2023 aimed at providing creative opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds.
On Monday, the HUA posted a flyer for the event — featuring Les Adore’s logo alongside the other co-sponsoring groups — on their Instagram account. The College’s Office of Student Engagement also publicized the event in a Wednesday evening email to the student body, but did not include the digital poster.
The HUA originally invited Les Adore to co-sponsor the event, according to one HUA member.
After The Crimson sent a comment request to the HUA co-presidents and College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo on Wednesday evening, the HUA informed Les Adore founder Amina T. Salahou ’25 that Les Adore would no longer be involved in Thursday’s event.
Salahou wrote in response to a Crimson comment request that “Les Adore isn’t technically involved anymore as the HUA can only co-host with student-recognized groups.”
College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote that the Dean of Students Office is “in contact with the HUA.”
University policies for unrecognized student groups have long been the source of controversy, but recent demands from the Trump administration have brought them back into the limelight.
The College’s co-sponsorship policy also came under scrutiny on Saturday, when organizers of an “anti-Zionist Passover seder for liberation” — for which Adams House withdrew support, citing sponsorship by the unrecognized group Harvard Jews for Palestine — claimed that the flyer for the event did not feature J4P’s logo.
Tamar Sella ’25, one of the organizers for the seder, said in an interview that she had previously been told by the DSO that unrecognized groups could publicize events without officially co-sponsoring, as long as they did not add their logos to flyers promoting the events.
Palumbo declined to comment on whether the Les Adore logo on the event’s promotional materials would constitute co-sponsorship and lead to disciplinary action.
The remaining co-sponsors of the event — in addition to the HUA — are all recognized student groups and academic departments: the Harvard Undergraduate Association of Ghanaian Students, Harvard Political Union, Latinas Unidas de Harvard College, Woodbridge International Society, Harvard College Nigerian Students Association, Harvard South Asian Association, and the Secondary Field in Educational Studies.
HUA Co-Presidents Ashley C. Adirika ’26 and Jonathan Haileselassie ’26 did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the situation.
—Staff writer Nina A. Ejindu can be reached at nina.ejindu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @nina_ejindu.
—Staff writer Claire L. Simon can be reached at claire.simon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @ClaireSimon.
