In a report released on Tuesday, Harvard has come to the wise conclusion that the institution should stop issuing “official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function.” ...

It will be interesting to see whether Harvard’s leaders can heed that advice and resist making statements through Election Day. Until then, other institutions would be wise to follow Harvard’s example and adopt their own policy of institutional neutrality. Universities have never possessed moral clarity. Knowledge creation requires rewarding dissent and epistemic modesty, qualities that are incompatible with institutional solidarity or real-time judgments about who is on “the right side of history.” ...

The report closes by advising that when pressure builds to make an official statement, Harvard should refer to its new policy and clarify the reason for its silence: “the belief that the purpose of the university is best served by speaking only on matters directly relevant to its function and not by issuing declarations on other matters, however important.”