Demands

We demand institutional recognition of the homophobic Secret Court of 1920 through the following actions:

  • Conferral of honorary posthumous degrees to the victims of the Secret Court of 1920 who never attained Harvard degrees following their wrongful expulsion, including Eugene R. Cummings (Dental); Kenneth Day (College); Ernest Weeks Roberts (College); Edward Say (College); Keith Smerage (College); Nathaniel Wolff (College).
  • Establishment of an endowed commemorative fund enabling both undergraduate and graduate student research on queer history at Harvard and beyond. This fund should be named after the victims of the Court.
  • Removal of portraiture of Dean Chester Noyes Greenough, the architect of the Court, from public display in Dunster House. New portraiture should be commissioned in both Dunster and Lowell House, named after then-President Abbott Lawrence Lowell, to honor Harvard’s BGLTQ+ leaders and/or Court victims, to be determined by the respective Houses.

We demand the following measures be taken to better support BGLTQ+ life and scholarship across the University:

  • Extensive reform of campus behavioral health services, including improvements to counselor availability and diversity, transparent review of the medical leave policy, and the removal of HUPD from mental health interventions. 
  • Undergraduate housing policy review and reform, including data collection regarding House transfers and off-campus housing, guaranteed gender-neutral housing for all who request it, and sensitivity training for Faculty Deans and housing administrators.
  • Commitment to stable, long-term investment in BGLTQ student support, including steady-state funding for the Offices of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the broad array of student affinity groups.
  • Inauguration of a University-wide effort to document the institution’s BGLTQ+ history, with named, dedicated resources for research on the history of BGLTQ+ people at Harvard and throughout Cambridge, MA.
  • Comprehensive review of all syllabi by faculty members to ensure that the voices and histories of diverse BGLTQ+ people are represented.
  • Introduce mandatory BGLTQ+ inclusion training for all faculty and staff and optional BGLTQ+ student orientation, either at individual schools or through a University-wide program, available to all incoming students.