After a 2023-2024 school year that can only be described as an “annus horribilis,” Harvard has taken a major step in shoring up its institutional reputation with an announcement that it will no longer weigh in on issues outside the university.

In a recent letter to the Harvard University community, interim President Alan Garber and other university administrators announced that the institution’s leaders would no longer make public statements “‘that do not directly affect the university’s core function’ as an academic institution.”