By Mary Katharine Ham
Friday, September 15, 2017
Harvard’s Institute of Politics announced late last night
convicted felon Chelsea Manning will not be a Visiting Fellow at the university
this fall after two pillars of the national security community protested the
convicted felon’s inclusion.
Manning, who was found guilty in 2010 on 20 of 22 counts
in the biggest leak of classified records in history, was announced Wednesday
as a member of a class of about ten public figures who would spend a day or
more on campus speaking to students and taking questions. Others in the class
include Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezenski, Sean Spicer, Robby Mook, and myself.
Manning indiscriminately downloaded and leaked some
250,000 government documents as an Army intelligence analyst in Iraq. Seven
years into a 35-year sentence, Manning received a commutation from President
Obama. During the trial and sentencing, Manning’s lawyers blamed Manning’s
gender dysphoria for leading to his crimes, and in 2016 then-Bradley Manning
declared in a commutation application, “I am Chelsea Manning, a proud woman who
is transgender and who, through this application, is respectfully requesting a
first chance at life.”
Since then, Manning has been feted by elite society as a
symbol of trans heroism and overcoming hardship. The announcement of Manning’s
Harvard fellowship came on the heels of an Annie Liebovitz photoshoot for the
September issue of Vogue.
A former CIA director, Michael Morell resigned the day
after Manning was named a Fellow at Harvard, saying he couldn’t be part of a
program “that honors a convicted felon and leaker of classified information.”
Current CIA Director Mike Pompeo also canceled a speaking appearance at
Harvard’s Kennedy School this week in protest.
“[A]fter much deliberation,” Pompeo wrote, “My conscience
and duty to the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency will not
permit me to betray their trust by appearing to support Harvard’s decision (to
hire Manning) with my appearance at tonight’s event.”
Douglas Elmendorf, who runs the Harvard Institute of
Politics, called the title of fellow for Manning a “mistake,” saying it was not
intended to convey honor or endorsement of Manning’s actions or views:
I still think that having her speak
in the Forum and talk with students is consistent with our longstanding
approach, which puts great emphasis on the value of hearing from a diverse
collection of people. But I see more clearly now that many people view a
Visiting Fellow title as an honorific, so we should weigh that consideration
when offering invitations. In particular, I think we should weigh, for each
potential visitor, what members of the Kennedy School community could learn
from that person’s visit against the extent to which that person’s conduct
fulfills the values of public service to which we aspire. This balance is not
always easy to determine, and reasonable people can disagree about where to
strike the balance for specific people. Any determination should start with the
presumption that more speech is better than less. In retrospect, though, I
think my assessment of that balance for Chelsea Manning was wrong. Therefore,
we are withdrawing the invitation to her to serve as a Visiting Fellow—and the
perceived honor that it implies to some people—while maintaining the invitation
for her to spend a day at the Kennedy School and speak in the Forum. I
apologize to her and to the many concerned people from whom I have heard today
for not recognizing upfront the full implications of our original invitation.
This decision now is not intended as a compromise between competing interest
groups but as the correct way for the Kennedy School to emphasize its
longstanding approach to visiting speakers while recognizing that the title of
Visiting Fellow implies a certain recognition.
I wrote a book about free speech and regularly bemoan the
limits placed on it, especially on college campuses. That is, in fact, the
subject of my contribution to the fellows program at Harvard. I think bright
lines about what speech students can hear should be few and far between, but
giving a prestigious title to a convicted traitor seems a pretty logical one to
draw, and I’m glad Harvard is belatedly observing it. I want Manning to get
very tough questions at Harvard, and I’m hopeful this controversy encourages
campus dissenters to be there and offer them.
Manning was the first trans person to be given the title
of Fellow. There is no doubt trans status played a part in both Manning’s
commutation and continued whitewashing of the crimes committed. But if we’re
serious about treating trans people equally, Manning’s crimes should be treated
seriously, not diminished or even celebrated because of one’s status as a
transperson. Tolerance of Manning’s status does not require public honor and
celebration. And surely there is some other trans activist, or even trans
veteran, who could offer perspective to students as a fellow without a
conviction for betraying the country.
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