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Harvard Salient Suspended by Alumni Board as Student Editors Vow to Continue

Student leaders dispute the alumni board's pause as an illegitimate move under the magazine's rules.

Overview

  • The publication’s 10-member alumni board suspended operations on Sunday pending a conduct review, calling recent material "reprehensible, abusive, and demeaning."
  • Board leaders said they received "deeply disturbing and credible" complaints about the organization’s culture and opened an investigation without specifying which articles or incidents prompted the action.
  • Editor-in-chief Richard Y. Rodgers told members on Tuesday the move was an "unauthorized usurpation of power" and said the magazine would continue publishing under student leadership.
  • A September print essay by student David F. X. Army echoed a 1939 Hitler formulation and invoked "blood" and "soil," which Rodgers said was not an intentional quotation and was not recognized before publication.
  • Harvard, which has no editorial or financial control over the Salient, declined to intervene and referred questions to the magazine’s board.