Harvard graduate union requests for academic freedom protections in ongoing contract negotiations

Harvard’s graduate student union has asked the University to guarantee academic freedom protections for student workers’ teaching and research as part of ongoing negotiations for its third contract. The proposal was presented by the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers (HGSU-UAW) during a bargaining session last week.

According to a report by The Harvard Crimson, the proposal would create a University-wide definition of academic freedom for graduate teaching and research assistants. It also seeks to secure the right of student workers to “express themselves peacefully as members of society or as representatives of their fields of instruction, study, or research.”

Union leaders said the move reflects a growing trend among graduate student unions using collective bargaining to extend protections beyond workplace concerns. Similar provisions have been adopted at Yale, Cornell, Tufts, and Johns Hopkins since 2023.

Bora Göbekli, a history Ph.D. student and member of the HGSU-UAW bargaining committee, said University negotiators agreed to review the proposal. A Harvard spokesperson declined to comment.

The HGSU-UAW’s draft also includes protections for confidentiality in teaching and research work and a mechanism to remove course evaluations that criticize actions covered under the proposed definition of academic freedom. Lindsey E. Adams, a member of the bargaining committee, said the measure is designed to shield student workers from doxxing and to “keep discourse on the campus open so that everyone can learn and grow.”

Concerns about doxxing have increased on U.S. campuses since the war in Gaza. At Harvard, the personal details of pro-Palestine activists circulated online after the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel. The University later introduced doxxing guidelines.

Graduate students preparing for academic careers have also raised concerns that negative course evaluations could harm their job prospects. A Faculty of Arts and Sciences report earlier this year found that many teaching fellows hesitate to provide critical feedback for fear of retaliation in student reviews.

If accepted, the HGSU-UAW’s proposal would mark Harvard’s first centralized academic freedom policy. The University currently relies on its 1970 Statement on University-Wide Rights and Responsibilities and school-level guidelines.

The proposal follows disputes over academic programs on campus. In recent months, Harvard has removed leaders of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies and closed a Divinity School program on the Israel-Palestine conflict, moves that faculty critics described as censorship. The Trump administration has also pressed Harvard to review programs and expand federal oversight of academic centers.

The HGSU-UAW has proposed forming a working group on academic freedom with representatives from the union, the American Association of University Professors, undergraduates, and other campus unions. The group would participate in decisions on closures or organizational changes affecting research and teaching.

Alongside the academic freedom issue, the union is also pressing for arbitration in discrimination and harassment cases and for fees from all represented workers. The bargaining process continues after Harvard’s decision to remove more than 900 members from the unit on grounds that they are not employees.