Harvard Business School’s statement on Community Values lays out the principles that enable us to realize our mission of educating leaders who make a difference in the world: “an environment of trust and mutual respect, free expression and inquiry, and a commitment to truth, excellence, and lifelong learning.” It also articulates the values members of the community must integrate and uphold: respect for the rights, differences, and dignity of others; honesty and integrity in dealing with all members of the community; and accountability for personal behavior.
The HBS MBA Program wishes to provide additional guidance for students on how these principles and values support our learning model—enabling every student to exercise their right to participate fully in the learning experience and asking all of us consider our responsibilities to each other as members of the HBS and Harvard University communities.
The HBS MBA Program strongly supports, as core to its learning model, freedom of expression inside and outside the classroom, in all media. Vigorous debate and the exchange and clash of ideas are essential to the educational experience at HBS, and one of the key skills our students develop in their time here is the ability to hear, discuss, and robustly disagree with diverse perspectives, including those they may find distasteful or offensive, respectfully and with a learning mindset. This skill, and the resilience these exchanges build, will be vital to their development as leaders. Consistent with this approach, the MBA Program takes actions that could constrain speech only under specific criteria as specified in related HBS and Harvard policies, i.e., the University-Wide Statement on Rights and Responsibilities, HBS Campus Demonstration Policy, and Non-Discrimination & Anti-Bullying Policy.
At times, actions or speech (in any medium) may affect members of the HBS community in ways that compromise the HBS learning model and, therefore, merit action by the School, even when they do not violate the policies specified above. The MBA program—which prioritizes sustaining a healthy learning environment for all students—generally addresses such situations first with education, seeking to ensure that students learn ways to better engage in the HBS learning environment without compromising the learning model, understand the impact they had on community member(s), and consider how to address any effects that may have resulted from their actions or speech.
As is true for all Community Values matters at HBS, failure to participate in this process in good faith may be considered a violation of HBS Community Values and lead to disciplinary actions, as determined by the Program, if it demonstrates an unwillingness to take personal accountability for and consider the impact of one’s actions on the HBS learning environment and community. Program leaders and the Conduct Review Board will follow our standard, confidential review processes in these situations.