Chelsea Manning: Harvard caved to CIA pressure

Chelsea Manning blasted Harvard University early Friday, accusing the Ivy League school of caving to pressure from the CIA after she was disinvited to be a visiting fellow at the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. 

“Honored to be 1st disinvited trans woman visiting Harvard fellow,” Manning tweeted, adding “They chill marginalized voices under CIA pressure.”  

“This is what a military/police/intel state looks like,” she continued. “The CIA determines what is taught and what is not taught at Harvard.” 

honored to be 1st disinvited trans woman visiting @harvard fellow they chill marginalized voices under @cia pressure #WeGotThis https://t.co/7ViF3GaSec

— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) September 15, 2017

this is what a military/police/intel state looks like ️️‍♀️ the @cia determines what is and is not taught at @harvard #WeGotThis https://t.co/09xIJGlhgf

— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) September 15, 2017

The tweets come just hours after the school announced in a statement at midnight Friday that Manning’s invitation to be a visiting fellow at the school would be withdrawn. The school had faced intense backlash over the decision to invite Manning. 

“We are withdrawing the invitation to her to serve as a Visiting Fellow — and the perceived honor that it implies to some people — while maintaining the invitation for her to spend a day at the Kennedy School and speak in the Forum,” the Kennedy School’s Dean Douglas Elmendorf said in a statement. 

“I apologize to her and to the many concerned people from whom I have heard today for not recognizing upfront the full implications of our original invitation. This decision now is not intended as a compromise between competing interest groups but as the correct way for the Kennedy School to emphasize its longstanding approach to visiting speakers while recognizing that the title of Visiting Fellow implies a certain recognition,” he said. 

{mosads}Manning was convicted in 2013 for releasing confidential military and State Department documents. Former President Obama commuted her sentence last year. 

CIA Director Mike Pompeo canceled his planned talk at the school after it was announced Manning would be a visiting fellow, writing “Ms. Manning stands against everything the brave men and women I serve alongside stand for.” 

Former CIA Director Michael Morell stepped down from his post as a senior fellow at the school on Thursday, saying the decision to hire Manning legitimized her as a “criminal leaker.”

“Unfortunately, I cannot be part of an organization — The Kennedy School — that honors a convicted felon and leaker of classified information, Ms. Chelsea Manning, by inviting her to be a Visiting Fellow at the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics,” Morell said in his resignation letter.