Harvard scrambles to explain why it secretly searched deans’ emails
Harvard University officials scrambled Monday to contain the fallout from a damaging report in The Boston Globe over the weekend disclosing how administrators secretly accessed email accounts belonging to 16 resident deans at the university.
In a statement Monday, Harvard Deans Michael Smith and Evelynn Hammonds acknowledged that the search described in the Globe report had happened. However, they maintained the search was done in an extremely limited and thoughtful manner to identify an individual who shared a confidential email with an unauthorized person.
Though the specific email was inconsequential, the fact that it was forwarded word-for-word to someone else was concerning, the deans said in their statement. The disclosure prompted concerns that other information, especially sensitive student information, was also at risk of similar disclosure.
"The search did not involve a review of email content; it was limited to a search of the subject line of the email that had been inappropriately forwarded," Smith and Hammonds noted. "To be clear: No one's emails were opened and the contents of no one's emails were searched by human or machine."
The statement appears to be an attempt by Harvard to put a lid on what's quickly turned out to be a major embarrassment for the prestigious university.
The Globe on Saturday reported that Harvard administrators had secretly accessed the email accounts of 16 resident deans at the university last fall. The university was looking for the source of a leak to the news media about a cheating scandal at the university, the Globe reported.
Resident deans serve on Harvard's Administrative Board, the university's disciplinary body, and are responsible for working with students to discuss such issues as academic requirements and personal concerns, according to a university description. Resident deans, who are basically non-tenure track teachers, work with students in preparing academic petitions and in responding to disciplinary actions.
None of the resident deans whose emails were searched were informed about the access prior to the search and only one was told about it after the search was completed. The individual who was notified about the search was a resident dean who had forwarded a confidential email pertaining to the cheating scandal, to a student. The contents of that email -- basically advice on how to counsel students accused of cheating -- later found its way to the Harvard Crimson student newspaper, and from there to the Globe.
According to the Globe, each of the deans had two Harvard email accounts, one for administrative duties and another for personal use. Only the administrative email account was accessed in each case, the newspaper noted.
(Source: computerworld.com)
