Harvard IOP Student Leader Resigns, Citing ‘Palestinian Exception to Free Speech’

As we neared the one-year anniversary of October 7 earlier this month, the Harvard Institute of Politics — the largest student organization on Harvard’s campus and its flagship platform for political discourse — saw a high-profile shakeup in its student leadership. Citing the Palestinian exception to free speech, a vocal pro-Palestine activist resigned as the chair of one of the IOP’s popular programs on campaigns and advocacy. The reason? Closed-door infighting over how to handle the 2024 elections and Israel-Palestine conflict in its programming. As concerns about free speech and censorship ramp up, the IOP shakeup marked a fundamental disagreement between the IOP’s top student leadership on how to handle political campus discourse on Israel and Palestine.Today on Newstalk, we join our reporters to break down the dispute — and we join the student who resigned to hear his version of the story.