Harvard bipartisan panel features only Democrats and left-wing speakers

This story is part of Fox News Digital’s investigative series Campus Radicals. Get the full series here.

A panel at Harvard University described as a discussion about bridging the partisan divide included only members from both parties Political leftincluding two Democrats who previously held elected office and the head of a high-profile group known for supporting left-wing causes.

Participants in the October 9 session, titled “Across the Divide: Organizing to Build Bridges in Partisan Times,” were former Democratic Rep. Joe Kennedy; former Democratic Mayor of New Orleans and Louisiana Governor Mitch Landrieu; and NAACP President Derrick Johnson. The event was moderated by former NBC Boston correspondent Alison King.

“When I heard the initial question about political division, I kind of changed, because we no longer have political division, we have a national crisis in our democracy,” Johnson said in his opening remarks.

Two women walk through the gate of Harvard Yard at Harvard University, September 30, 2025, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

He then cited Democrats’ talking points about the trend Government shutdown.

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“As we now look at the government shutdown, let me share my opinion,” he said. “It’s based on two basic things. How can they cut back or repeal the Affordable Care Act, and/or distract from the Epstein files. So I don’t think there’s a political divide anymore, I think it’s a national crisis for our democracy.”

Landrieu, who served as co-president of Kamala HarrisAn unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign and as co-chair of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, he opened by boasting about “removing four Confederate monuments in New Orleans.”

Landrieu also served in the Biden administration as a senior advisor to coordinate implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

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NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson speaks at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, August 19, 2024. (Reuters/Mike Segar)

He said his organization, E Pluribus Unum, focuses on reaching out across the political aisle to teach people about diversity and how to talk about race.

He then focused on defending DEI and, without prompting, attacked the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

“Pete Hegseth is not qualified. Do you feel me on this? He’s a DEI employee,” he said, receiving applause from the audience, before launching into more left-wing talking points.

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“In my opinion, diversity is the nation’s greatest strength. It’s our superpower,” Landrieu said. “The word indivisibility means that we are so bound that when we do it this way no one can defeat us. And when we emerge from the many and become one, no one has ever defeated the United States of America when we have done that.”

Mitch Landrieu appears on stage during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, August 20, 2024. (Reuters/Mike Segar)

Kennedy founded an organization called The Groundwork Project, which he said has had a “great partner” in the NAACP “from the beginning.”

“In the fight to defend American democracy, frontline community organizers are our single most influential asset,” the organization’s website says. He goes on to claim that “anti-democratic” forces in the Deep South, Appalachia and the Plains have been organizing “largely unopposed for generations.”

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“Today, these investments are paying off, as anti-democratic forces use the enormous civic power they have gained in these places to threaten bodily autonomy, public education, voting rights, climate action, and democratic freedom for all of us,” the site says.

Kennedy also criticized the president Donald Trump During his statements to the committee.

Rep. Joe Kennedy III speaks outside his campaign headquarters after conceding defeat to incumbent Sen. Edward Markey, September 1, 2020, in the Massachusetts Democratic Senate primary. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

“Donald Trump tells America’s story,” Kennedy said. “And it’s interesting for a large enough population that this is a story being written about America. One story about America. That’s not my belief about the story of America.”

He complained that Democrats had to defend the “status quo” against Trump while also defending democracy.

“One of the jiu-jitsu moves that Donald Trump has made in the last couple of years is that he has created a Democratic Party that has traditionally been the party that is trying to erode those centers of power from corporate America or consolidate political power into certain channels, to undermine that and make it more diffuse, empower everyone, expand the ‘we,’” he said. “It turned that around and made Democrats, all of a sudden, stand up for the World Trade Organization, stand up for the rule of law, stand up for the status quo. Stand up for democracy at a time when people said, ‘I can’t make ends meet.'”

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“The question now is: How can the Democratic Party define itself in the midst of this administration as an institution, because they have the House and the Senate and the presidency while they are in power, and therefore by definition an institution, and they are tearing down the very structures of those institutions?”

A Harvard Kennedy School spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the school hosts a wide range of political leaders from both sides of the political aisle.

“For our students to become good public leaders, they must learn how to navigate differences and party lines — so we are intentional about bringing voices to campus from across the political spectrum,” the statement said. “Harvard Kennedy School is proud to be one of the only places in America where students can engage with politicians from both ends of the political spectrum like Nancy Mace and Pramila Jayapal, with the managers of both presidential campaigns, or with senior advisors to President Biden and President Trump — often on the same day or even at the same hour.”

A Harvard Kennedy School spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the school hosts a wide range of political leaders from both sides of the political aisle. (Blake Nissen for The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

The statement continued: “The purpose of this event is for leaders to talk about the importance of building bridges across our political divide, which is an important goal regardless of the political affiliations of the speakers.” “A particular event like this may contain viewpoints that people on either side may find unbalanced, but there is always another event — and another speaker — that offers a different perspective.”

The school noted that it has recently hosted prominent conservatives such as Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, former Trump advisors Kellyanne Conway, Chris LaCivita, former Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, CNN commentator Scott Jennings, former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, former Governor Eric Holcomb, former Senator Pat Toomey, Senator Rick Scott, former Governor Asa Hutchinson, former Ambassador John Bolton and many others.

He specifically pointed to Pence’s call for politicians to “disagree without being disagreeable.”

“Since the founding of the Institute of Politics, our mission has been to engage with the left, right and center of the American political spectrum — and we remain deeply committed to that mission today.”