William Harris
William Harris received his B.A. from Haverford College, where he majored in history with minors in Spanish and the history of art. His senior thesis, “Dare to Look: Manuel Godoy’s Secret Cabinet and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Spain,” analyzed the late Inquisition’s censorship of art and literature and won the History Department Senior Thesis Prize. William gave a TEDx Talk on art censorship drawn from his research in May 2024.
William first joined FIREas an undergraduate, working as a FIRESummer Intern and as a FIRECampus Scholar. Currently, William works as a Strategic Campaigns Associate on ֭’s Campus Rights Advocacy team. As part of his work to identify, cultivate, and activate free speech advocates, William oversees ֭’s Let’s Talk civil discourse program, a network of independent student organizations dedicated to dialogue across differences on college campuses.
An alum of Haverford’s varsity cross country and track teams, you can find William running, cycling, and rowing along the Schuylkill River when not at work promoting free expression.
Recent Writings
- Orchestrated silence: How one of America’s most elite music schools expelled a student for reporting harassment,
- New tools for tough conversations,
- Stranger than fiction: The Young Warrior saga at the Institute of American Indian Arts,
- Mercury in retrograde: How UT Dallas tried to roll back student press rights,
- Norwich University student journalists stand up for a free, independent press ,
- How to survive Thanksgiving,
- Trailblazing Dartmouth students bring dialogue across difference to campus,
- Let your free speech-failing alma mater know: ‘I put my money where my mouth is.’,
- Protesting, postering, or planning a campus event? Your college’s policies might have just changed.,
- Olympic controversies underscore importance of free speech culture ,
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