Former HKS Dean Compares Unrest at Harvard to Vietnam Era Protests at IOP Forum

Former Harvard Kennedy School Dean Joseph S. Nye Jr. compared unrest at Harvard today to Vietnam Era protests in the late 1960s at an Institute of Politics Forum on Thursday.

The event was moderated by public policy lecturer Hannah Riley Bowles, the co-director of the Center for Public Leadership. During the forum, Nye discussed his recently published memoir, “A Life in the American Century,” which details his career at the State Department and Pentagon during the Carter and Clinton administrations.

Nye likened recent protests over Harvard’s response to the Israel-Hamas war to the unrest he witnessed on campus in the 1960s — a period marked by political protests over civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam War — but said the violence he experienced then was “much worse.”

“In the 60s, we had a bomb go off in my office at the Center for International Affairs. The building was ransacked three times,” he said.

Nye said despite ongoing issues at Harvard, he doesn’t believe that protests have reached the same level of violence experienced by the University before.

“We have a lot of problems today, but not the same, or at least not quite as violent,” he said. “For all our divisions today at Harvard, I don’t think we’ve gotten there yet.”

Nye expressed concern over donors and “pressures from outside” influencing the University’s decision making processes.

“What you have is a group of outsiders who are trying to micromanage the University,” he said.

“Billionaires deserve their names on buildings, but they don’t deserve to tell the Corporation how to run the University,” Nye added.

Nye also discussed his time leading HKS, sharing that he was initially hesitant to accept the position.

“When I was first asked to be dean, I said no because I wanted to stay in the government and to finish this work on Asia,” he said.

However, after the deadly Oklahoma City bombing which killed hundreds, Nye was “shocked” by the threat posed to government employees. Nye said after he “got the East Asian strategy under control” in his role at the Department of Defense, he then decided to take the job as dean of HKS.

Nye said one of his goals during his time as HKS dean was increasing the proportion of foreign students.

“People would say to me, ‘How can you give away these precious spaces at Harvard to foreigners when there are so many Americans that need them?’” he said. “I said, ‘Because you don’t know what America is until you’ve interacted with a foreigner.’”

Nye also said that when he joined HKS, the school had “extremely able women, but not enough.”

Nye said improving the gender diversity at HKS was a key issue for him, leading him to create a “program on women and leadership” — which continues to this day as the Women and Public Policy Program.

While Nye acknowledged the remarkable turmoil Harvard has experienced in the past several months, he said he has “cautious optimism.”

“Individuals can spearhead changes in policy if you build the right coalitions and get your ideas across,” he said.

“We’ve been through worse in the past and we can probably do it again,” Nye added.

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.