Congress Subpoenas Harvard's Top Leadership

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Yael S. Goldstein 0:01
From Plympton Street. This is Newstalk.

Frank S. Zhou 0:04
In the newest development as Harvard's interim president Alan M. Garber navigates the university's most tumultuous crisis in recent memory, House Republicans subpoenaed three top Harvard officials demanding internal documents and communications for an investigation into the university's handling of antisemitism on campus.

Yael S. Goldstein 0:23
Today on Newstalk, our reporters join us to break down the threat this poses to Harvard and two editorial board members join us to discuss the options that lay ahead.

Frank S. Zhou 0:33
From Plympton Street, I'm Frank Zhou,

Yael S. Goldstein 0:36
and I'm Yael Goldstein,

Frank S. Zhou 0:37
this is Newstalk.

Emma H. Haidar 0:41
Hi, my name is Emma Haidar.

Cam E. Kettles 0:43
And my name is Cam Kettles, and we cover central administration for The Crimson.

Frank S. Zhou 0:47
Thank you so much, Cam and Emma, for joining us. So three top Harvard officials have just been subpoenaed. Tell us who's been subpoenaed and what that means.

Emma H. Haidar 0:54
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce just issued subpoenas to interim president Alan Garber, Penny Pritzker, who is the Senior Fellow of the Harvard Corporation, the university's highest governing body, as well as the CEO of the Harvard Management Company, and Narv Narvekar. These top three Harvard officials have until March 4, to respond to the subpoena, which basically asked for an extensive list of documents and communications from the university, which the committee has been demanding for weeks now.

Cam E. Kettles 1:27
They are requesting disciplinary records. And there are a lot of questions about what may or may not clash with federal privacy law like it is an open question about if the university decides to actually fight this submission.

Emma H. Haidar 1:40
Today, Harvard has sent 10 submissions to the committee totaling around 3,500 pages of documents. 2,500 of those pages relate to the committee's investigation into antisemitism on campus. And 1,000 of those pages relate to the committee's investigation over plagiarism allegations against Claudine Gay and the way the university handled those. The chair of the committee, Virginia Foxx, said in a press release that 40% of what Harvard had submitted to date were publicly available documents, and she has criticized the university for from her perspective attempting to obstruct the House Committee's investigation. It should be noted, though, that the committee in their original requests, did also ask Harvard to send over what would be considered publicly available information such as documents relating to their policies, and anything like that.

Frank S. Zhou 2:37
On the show last week, Emma and Cam, both of you talked about the threat of the subpoena, the idea that this could be potentially threatening to the university as it continues to handle tensions on campus, outline what some of those could be. And what we should be watching out for in the coming weeks.

Cam E. Kettles 2:51
If Harvard submits meeting minutes from the two boards that make decisions for the entire university, and those are submitted and publicly available if the committee releases them, the decisions made at the highest most secretive levels of Harvard's governance would be public. That is going back a presidential search, that is pandemic era policies, it is corporation appointments, recommendations made by former President Gay's antisemitism Advisory Committee. This is new territory for the university, right? Universities aren't subpoenaed, and certainly aren't subpoenaed when it comes to their students' disciplinary records. So Harvard is having a conversation with its lawyers about how to go about this because it's so new to everyone.

Frank S. Zhou 3:34
So given that it's new territory, what happens if Harvard does not submit to the subpoena?

Cam E. Kettles 3:40
The three administrators that have been subpoenaed could be held in contempt of Congress, and that comes with fines, that comes with a potential year in jail, like these are really serious at their most extreme, but it's certainly not a foregone conclusion that happens, even if they just say, No, this could drag out for many months. And in many months, things might be very different between Congress and Harvard. It depends on the political composition of the committee post this election.

Frank S. Zhou 4:08
So what have experts said about this particular moment, and Congress's subpoena?

Emma H. Haidar 4:12
Some experts are a little skeptical of the scope of the committee subpoenas and exactly how relevant they are to the investigation.

Cam E. Kettles 4:21
One of the experts that we spoke to Paul Reville, a professor of education policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said that in the view of some people, this is harassment by Congress, and that these requests go way farther than what they should be allowed to do in terms of policing colleges.

Emma H. Haidar 4:38
So, going through some of the old letters that the committee has sent Harvard, there are 17 bullet points and in the subpoenas, there are 11. And it does point to some narrowing of what exactly they're asking for in the subpoena compared to earlier requests that weren't entirely enforceable. The committee originally asked for text messages from members of the corporation and top administrators. Now, they're just asking for more so meeting minutes, but one expert that we've talked to Stanley Brand, who had previously served as general counsel to the US House of Representatives, said that Congress requesting records relating to disciplinary matters also raises privacy and due process concerns. Stan Brand has also pointed out that if Harvard does decide to fight the subpoena and not just immediately comply with every single demand, the committee has made the road for the committee to really enforce the subpoenas is "an arduous long and drawn out proceeding in court under the contempt statute."

Cam E. Kettles 5:36
And the subpoena has a formal process to justify why something might be excluded or redacted as part of the submission beyond that the documents they can provide and are legally able to provide unambiguously are still in serious question about if they might be able to avoid or fight that.

Emma H. Haidar 5:52
So it remains to be seen until March 4, when they're required to hand in all these documents, exactly what road Harvard is going to take and how the committee will react.

Frank S. Zhou 6:03
Thank you so much, Cam and Emma, for joining us to talk through Congress's subpoena and what this means for Harvard.

Cam E. Kettles 6:06
Thanks, Frank.

Emma H. Haidar 6:08
Thanks so much for having us.

Yael S. Goldstein 6:15
As news of the subpoena made its way around campus, students weighed in. I sat down with two members of the Crimson's editorial board to hear what they have to say.

Saul I.M. Arnow 6:28
I'm Saul I.M. Arnow. I'm an associate editorial editor for staff eds.

Lorenzo Z. Ruiz 6:33
I'm Lorenzo Z. Ruiz. I'm an editorial editor and columnist at the Harvard Crimson.

Yael S. Goldstein 6:39
Welcome Saul and Lorenzo and thanks for joining me on our first editorial segment on Newstalk. So we've got a lot to discuss today. The House Committee on Education in the workforce issued subpoenas to three top Harvard officials, including Alan Garber, Penny Pritzker and Narv Narvekar Now, this is the first time that the committee has ever subpoenaed a university talked me through your initial reactions when the news broke.

Lorenzo Z. Ruiz 7:05
This wasn't something that came unexpectedly. We had already been having discussions on the editorial board for a while about the investigation. But it also should not be understated. How much of a momentous occasion this is, this is something that is pretty unprecedented when it comes to the relationship between Congress and American universities.

Saul I.M. Arnow 7:28
Yeah, I can't say I was surprised. I think they were alluding to the fact that experience we're coming to and they were threatening them. So just the sort of lack of surprise, but also a sense of disappointment that Harvard continues to be a sort of political punching bag in the news.

Yael S. Goldstein 7:40
So, when you say political punching bag, I'm getting the sense that you think Congress might be overstepping?

Saul I.M. Arnow 7:46
I would say certainly, you know, you think about all the things that Congress could be spending their time on the education committee or the issues in higher education, they could be focusing on things like crushing student loan debt, things like the dearth of community college access and education in the United States. And instead, they've decided to spend their time subpoena and Harvard. It's just a strange use of their time, especially when you consider that this is the least efficient Congress in recent memory, the fact that they could be doing anything else related to these issues, and instead, they're issuing subpoenas related to internal discussions about a university precedent, seems to me to be very strange.

Yael S. Goldstein 8:18
Lorenzo, would you agree with that characterization?

Lorenzo Z. Ruiz 8:20
A lot of folks have been quick to label Congresswoman Foxx and the investigation is taking place in bad faith. While I don't think that those opinions are unfounded, I do think that the subpoena invites us to think a little more deeply. The fact that Harvard has been subpoenaed should tell us something about America's perception of our university at this moment, which is, it is politically expedient for actors like Congresswoman Fox to use Harvard as a boogeyman or as a punching bag. But we should also acknowledge that these criticisms of Harvard arrive in a context clearly it's become politically expedient, because Harvard has, for whatever reason, lost the admiration and support of the American public. So we should really take this moment to reflect deeply.

Yael S. Goldstein 9:14
So how much do you think as Lorenzo was saying political expediency figures in to how Harvard should respond to the Congressional subpoena?

Saul I.M. Arnow 9:25
I think that the political considerations are really important because they have a real kind of bearing on what this investigation is going to uncover. I'd be the last person to disagree that Harvard suffers from real serious problems. The fact that Harvard basically exclusively educates wealthy people to continue to go into wealthy upper-class professions. You know, it's really concerning and can explain a lot of public distrust in our university. But the important question is, will this Congress do anything about it? Will this Congress do anything about generations of social mobility or legitimate concerns about antisemitism? And the answer to me is a resounding no. That this goes back for me at least to the televised hearing that went viral for an exchange between Claudine Gay and one of the congresswomen describing Harvard's speech policies. But I watched the entire hearing and for a hearing about antisemitism, I didn't hear a lot of questions about the problem of antisemitism. I heard questions about whether a dearth of conservative faculty is a source of antisemitism, whether the trans athletes participation in sports could have a relationship with antisemitism, about whether lots of quote unquote, "foreign," students could have a relationship with antisemitism. And if it wasn't clear already, it was abundantly clear to me that these congresspeople did not have the interests of Jewish students like me at heart, but they're moving forward to capitalize on this moment to take advantage of electoral gains. And that with that in mind, I think that has real bearing on the way that they're going to carry out their investigation. I don't trust this Congress to fairly show us the facts that they uncover. They've shown an incredible ability to paint narratives about universities that suit their political needs, but won't do anything to help Jewish students won't do anything to solve real problems that do exist at universities.

Lorenzo Z. Ruiz 11:00
I agree 100%, that these are investigations that are being conducted for the sake of scoring political points at a moment when Congress is desperate to score political points. We're in the midst of an election year. And this is a floundering Congress, of course, I invite us to consider deeply why it is that this subpoena has arrived in the first place. But I don't think this investigation is going to do any actual good.

Yael S. Goldstein 11:27
Alright, so having considered the congressional motivations behind the subpoena, how do you think Harvard should weigh considerations of privacy versus complete compliance when considering their response?

Lorenzo Z. Ruiz 11:39
I definitely don't want to prescribe legal advice to the university on this issue. But I do think it is in the best interest of the university to endeavor to make the investigation resolve itself while of course, prioritizing student privacy, I don't know precisely what that's going to look like. But I would encourage the university to cooperate because the longer that Harvard resists this investigation, the easier it's going to be to portray the university as an institution that's concealing a deep internal rot. That definitely isn't there. Obviously, the university has some real cultural issues it needs to grapple with. But I don't think that in the course of this investigation, we're going to stumble upon some deep conspiracy. So ultimately, it would be in the best interest of the university and the administration to be as transparent with the American public and with Congress as possible, even if this is a witch hunt.

Yael S. Goldstein 12:48
And Saul, would you add anything to that response?

Saul I.M. Arnow 12:51
We're in an era where students faces are being put on trucks, their information is being circulated online for their involvement in activism. And as a result, Harvard should be very careful with information relating to the personal events of students. And so that's another consideration that they have to take into account when they're dealing with these subpoenas, or are they handing you know the names and personal information of students who are already vulnerable into the hands of a Congress that's not friendly to them, and it's not looking out for their best interests. I agree that Harvard should sort of be operating with the interest of getting these investigations over with, you know, so that the Congress can focus on the much more serious issues facing the country. But I'm dubious about the claim that a totally cooperative posture is the thing that's going to take carbon out of the news cycle somehow. I think that's something that the last few months have demonstrated very clearly is the congressional Republicans have an incredible aptitude for spinning narratives out of things that are far less objectionable than they might sound. I don't think that it's in Harvard's best interest to feed congressional Republicans the ammunition that they're going to use to beat up Harvard in the public square. But it's totally legitimate to fight subpoenas with great lawyers, which Harvard has access to, in order to fight the political firestorm.

Yael S. Goldstein 14:02
Lorenzo, you seem like you want to respond to that.

Lorenzo Z. Ruiz 14:04
Saul carves in some excellent nuance there, which is, again, not a legal expert. But Harvard does have the ability to engage with the subpoena in a way that might enable us to retain more information. For the sake of privacy for the sake of relevance to the actual investigation. It is definitely in the best interest of Harvard to consider carefully what ways it can shield itself from more liability than it's necessary.

Yael S. Goldstein 14:37
So I just want to draw your attention to the fact that Harvard in spite of previous compliance and sending around 3500 pages of documents over to Congress, including 2500, about anti semitism and about 1000 on plagiarism allegations. Harvard administrators were accused of obstructing the efforts of the committee in the investigation of the university and the corporation. So basically, I'm wondering whether this sort of limited compliance that both of you are suggesting is even possible at all, or whether Harvard can ever evade these accusations of obstruction. In your opinion,

Lorenzo Z. Ruiz 15:12
We are at a point where we need to come to terms with the fact that the skepticism and ridicule from the American right against Harvard is not going to completely dissipate, all that we can do is try and be as transparent as we can. Looking at the requests in the subpoenas. There certainly do seem to be documents that Harvard should be able and indeed willing to hand over to the investigation. Items like meeting minutes from Harvard's two governing bodies don't seem like evidence, we should try and conceal, if anything, these are documents that should only serve to clarify that Harvard has never been acting nefariously they should only demonstrate to Congress and the American public that Harvard has been trying its best to resolve what has been an extremely tumultuous period in our university's history.

Saul I.M. Arnow 16:13
I think I'm totally in agreement, that transparency would be a welcome change from the way Harvard has operated. But I think the important question is, is handing over these documents the same thing as transparency? And my answer would be no, that if we were to get information from Congress that this would be moderated by right-wing Republicans who have made clear they're not interested in producing the best governance structure for the university, in solving the real problems that exist here. They're interested in scoring political points for electoral gain. And so with that in mind, I would question the idea that handing over these documents will give us an unbiased accounting of all the problems at Harvard, I'd be a lot more concerned that things would be twisted in a way that that disadvantages the University, and advantages Republicans.

Yael S. Goldstein 16:58
Okay, so we've discussed a lot about Congress about transparency and privacy considerations and about public opinion. Given all of these elements, what overall should constitute Harvard's response to the subpoena at this very moment?

Lorenzo Z. Ruiz 17:14
At the heart of this pitch is the following prescription Harvard needs to educate and Congress needs to govern. Right now, we're at a point where both entities are failing at their respective tasks, and need to realign themselves with those purposes. Obviously, I think Congress is failing a whole lot harder than Harvard. But we both need to take this moment to reflect Congress isn't going to take this moment to reflect. But Harvard showed,

Saul I.M. Arnow 17:44
I do think there are really serious issues at Harvard issues of antisemitism, issues of intransparent institutional governance, issues of anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia, issues of suppression of pro-Palestinian speech. And all of these deserve an important institutional reckoning. But the question to me is our Congress, the people who are going to help us and I don't think that right-wing Republicans have the best interests of Harvard at heart. And so I, you know, I'll hope for change in Harvard's governance, but can't say.

Yael S. Goldstein 18:14
All right now, I kind of want to shift the discussion from Harvard to a more national scale. How do you think the congressional subpoena of Harvard bears on the relationship between Congress and higher education as a whole moving forward?

Lorenzo Z. Ruiz 18:30
While the investigation and the subpoena do provide an opportunity for reflection, we should be fearful this feels like an overreach from Congress. It is being executed for the sake of political expediency. It does set a kind of dangerous precedent, do we want to live in a world where Congress has complete control over how universities run themselves? Certainly not. The university is supposed to be a sacred testing ground for novel concepts for political debate for education and for the academic project to flourish. It needs to be able to live in a realm separate from immediate political concerns.

Yael S. Goldstein 19:17
And what about you saw what do you think we should make of this event? From a national perspective?

Saul I.M. Arnow 19:22
I think this is really concerning for a couple of reasons. I think first, we've got to situate these subpoenas and a larger right-wing attack on education, that it's hard not to connect with two assaults on expertise and teaching about topics of race and gender trusting kind of the university and experts as a place to and speak openly about that. We've seen those kinds of attacks in public elementary schools and middle schools and high schools as well. And that should really concern us. And I think the other thing that's really concerning about this is the Congress has decided this is what they're going to spend their time on. I think that it's very strange that a group that doesn't seem to be very good at passing laws and doesn't seem to be good at coming up with very popular ideas and congressional Republicans. He has decided that their energy is best spent kind of punching at higher education. I hope this is not a trend that continues because it doesn't bode well for people who want to live in a democratic society. Thank

Yael S. Goldstein 20:10
you so much for joining me Lorenzo and Saul to discuss the congressional subpoena on Harvard.

Yael S. Goldstein 20:14
Thank you. Thank you so much Yael.

Frank S. Zhou 20:21
This episode of Newstalk was hosted by Frank S. Zhou and Yael S. Goldstein. It was produced by Frank S. Zhou, Yael S. Goldstein, and Lorenzo Z. Ruiz. Our editorial chairs are Tommy Barone and Jacob M. Miller. Our associate managing editors are Claire Yuan and Elias J. Schisgall. Our Managing Editor is Miles J. Herszenhorn. Our president is J. Sellers Hill. Music in this episode comes from Bea Wall-Fang, from Plympton Street, this is Newstalk.