What Harvard is getting right

An important lesson about "simplicity on the other side of complexity"

Image via Harvard’s research funding website.

Over the last few weeks, Harvard University has, to many, become a national symbol of institutional resistance to the Trump administration. The university’s refusal to submit to Trump’s demands — and it’s subsequent lawsuit against the government for its threats to freeze billions of dollars in federal funding — has brought about a national conversation about the free speech and civil rights violations the administration is committing against universities across the country.

It also has revealed the enormous implications for medical research in the U.S., which is personal for me. My 6-year old son Sam is in remission for B-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia, and his life was saved because of the medical innovations to come out of the scientific research from higher education. (He was treated at Children’s Hospital of New York, affiliated with Columbia, which has already been stripped of hundreds of millions of dollars in medical research funding.) Below is Sam at the pediatric oncology clinic at 3 years old with his beloved nurse, Victoria.

I’ve also been interested in this story as a communications strategist. The public narrative that Harvard has created has a lot to teach us about dissent and storytelling. Harvard’s research funding website does this quite brilliantly, reminding us of “simplicity on the other side of complexity.” This was originally quoted by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. when he said, “For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have.”

While in the midst of rhetorical manipulation and political spinning, foundational simplicity can one of the most effective ways we can communicate in this moment. And Harvard models this really well here. Titled “Upholding Our Values, Defending Our University,” the page communicates the following in a succinct, direct, crystal clear way:

• The significance of their work

• The threats at hand

• What’s at stake

• Why this is happening and a direct address to the “other side” of the argument

• Just the right amount of data

• Historical and current sources to support their case

For institutional leaders out there trying to find a way to speak or write about their work in these times, this is a great example of how you can share the simplicity on the other side of complexity — cutting through the noise and making a compelling case for just how damn important that work is.