Harvey Silverglate, a noted civil rights and criminal defense lawyer, is running for the Harvard Board of Overseers, on a platform of free speech and encouraging debate and viewpoint diversity. Harvey is the co-founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (which was recently broadened to be the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), as well as a member of the ACLU of Massachusetts Board of Directors for 30 years (two as the Board president).
As Jeff Jacoby (Boston Globe) reports,
Ordinarily, overseers are chosen from a slate of insider candidates selected by a committee of the Harvard Alumni Association. But there is an outside route: Candidates can get on the ballot if [3,188] Harvard graduates sign a petition nominating them.
