NLRB Finds Harvard Violated Federal Labor Law in Dispute with Police Union

The National Labor Relations Board found last week that Harvard violated federal labor law by refusing to share the findings of an investigation into a dispute between officers in the Harvard University Police Department with the union representing the police force’s rank-and-file members.

The Dec. 23 decision by Paul Bogas, an administrative judge at the NLRB, requires the University to immediately provide the Harvard University Police Association with a copy of the investigative report. Bogas wrote that Harvard violated federal labor law by refusing to provide the union with requested information necessary for its role as the employees’ exclusive bargaining representative.

Spokespeople for the University and the HUPA did not respond to Tuesday requests for comment on whether Harvard had provided the report to the union yet.

The union’s grievance dates back to an April 2024 disagreement between HUPD Captain John F. Fulkerson and former detective Kelsey L. Whelihan about how a reported sexual assault involving a Harvard student was handled.

The University then contracted the Ed Davis Company, a third-party security firm, to compile a report on the incident. Interviewers from the Ed Davis Company said they were investigating “the interaction between Detective Whelihan and the supervisors in the conduct of the investigation of the student sexual assault,” according to court documents.

The HUPA first requested a copy of the Ed Davis Company’s report in January 2024, writing to University officials that obtaining the report was necessary to “ensure that Detective Whelihan’s prior and current rights in the matter are protected” and to guarantee that members of the union have access to “investigational reports of complaints involving them.”

Whelihan, then a member of the union, left the department in March. Fulkerson is not represented by the union because of his position as a captain.

Whelihan and lawyers for Fulkerson did not respond to requests for comment on the ruling.

The HUPA then submitted two additional requests for the report in March and October 2024. The University refused the union’s request both times.

Zachary See, associate director of Harvard’s Office of Labor and Employee Relations, responded in March that the report was a confidential internal document not provided to employees and asked whether the union had a more specific reason for requesting a copy.

The HUPA filed a complaint with the NLRB in November 2024, accusing the University of “failing and refusing to bargain collectively and in good faith” by refusing to hand over the findings of the investigation.

Harvard offered to settle the case two weeks before a September hearing, according to court documents. The union did not agree to the settlement, which would have provided access to only one section of the report.

Lawyers for the HUPA and the University made their first public arguments in front of the NLRB in September, nearly a year after the union’s complaint was filed. Lawyers for the HUPA argued that it was a “fairly straightforward case,” and called for the University to release the report.

See claimed in the September hearing that the “entire” report was confidential, and no confidentiality agreement that HUPA could have proposed “would have sufficed.”

Bogas ruled that Harvard “utterly failed” to prove that the report was confidential after See — the only witness called to testify on the report’s contents — admitted in the hearing that he had not read the report before refusing to provide it to the HUPA.

Bogas added that See’s testimony “brings to mind a child who covers both ears and hums to avoid understanding an unwelcome communication.”

Along with the immediate release of the full report to the HUPA, the University is also required to notify all HUPA members that it was found to have violated federal labor laws.

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.

—Staff writer Claire A. Michal can be reached at [email protected].