Harvard censorship under attack

We read:

"Harvard Medical School is backing off a new student policy that would have restricted interaction with the news media after students complained it would chill their ability to talk about current issues in medicine, school officials said this week. "We need to be very careful," said Dr. Nancy E. Oriol, the dean of students, who helped develop the policy. Promising it would be revised, she said the policy was intended to help students, rather than limit speech or control what they say on controversial topics.

But several students said the policy was an attempt to keep them quiet about issues like medical conflicts of interest. "This is one of many ways that medical education implicitly teaches behaviors that differ significantly from the values that we hope physicians will uphold," Nate Favini, a Harvard medical student and chairman of the Student Council Advisory Board, said. "Instead of limiting students, we should encourage bold thinking and allow them to advocate for the reforms that our health care system so badly needs," he added in an email to the paper, reports Times writer Duff Wilson.

Favini and some Harvard Medical faculty said they were encouraged by the decision Tuesday to retract the policy. "The policy was extremely ill advised," Dr. Marcia Angell, a Harvard lecturer and former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, told the Times Tuesday.

The policy says: "All interactions between students and the media should be coordinated with the Office of the Dean of Students and the Office of Public Affairs. This applies to situations in which students are contacted by the media as well as instances in which students may be seeking publicity about a student-related project or program."

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