Harvard to ban ‘religious worship’ in new building to secure $675M in public bonds

Harvard University is borrowing $675 million in taxpayer-subsidized bonds to construct a new economics building on the condition that no religious worship or prayer is allowed inside it.

These funds come from the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency, a state agency that issues tax-exempt bonds on behalf of universities, hospitals, and other nonprofit institutions, according to The Washington Free Beacon. 

To qualify for the financing, Harvard agreed that “no part of the Project, so long as it is owned or controlled by the Institution, shall be used for any sectarian instruction or as a place of religious worship,” according to the finance agency’s official statement obtained by the Free Beacon. 

The restriction has sparked significant legal concerns.

Ilya Shapiro, the director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, told The College Fix, “There are quite obvious legal issues here, particularly because it involves a state regulation that disfavors religion.”

He said that when states make public programs or benefits available to all, they cannot discriminate against religious activity or religious status.

“The Supreme Court has held that there’s a difference between state funding or establishment of religion and making programs available to all, including religious institutions, on equal terms,” he said.

“Here, Harvard is a private school without a religious mission (unlike at its founding), so any Establishment Clause concerns are extremely attenuated,” Shapiro said.

The constitutional expert also said he was stunned by the policy. “Shocked is an understatement,” he said.

“It’s an interesting thought experiment, but university buildings that can’t have any gatherings have no purpose,” Shapiro added.

When asked what Harvard should do in this case, Shapiro suggested it “challenge the restrictions themselves.”

“Tell them that we’re not building a religious institution and that prohibiting religious activity as a condition of receiving the benefit of a public regulation is unconstitutional,” he said.

Notre Dame Law School Professor Nicole Garnett similarly criticized the stipulation.

She said the building’s restriction has “got to be unconstitutional,” as attaching a condition to public funds that bars religious exercise would violate the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Carson v. Makin, according to the Free Beacon. 

The Supreme Court ruled that imposing a “nonsectarian” requirement on otherwise generally available public funds violates the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause.

In other words, when the government makes funding available for secular purposes, it cannot exclude religious uses of that funding. Doing so amounts to unconstitutional discrimination against religion.

Garnett also said that the restriction “raises bizarre enforcement challenges.”

“Maybe Harvard would reply that its Divinity School isn’t sectarian,” Garnett added.

Pepperdine School of Law Chair Michael Helfand told the Free Beacon, “these sorts of provisions exist across state and across contexts, previously enacted because of an old, but now abandoned, interpretation of the Establishment Clause.”

“A state cannot exclude an institution from participating in such a government program because it would like to use the funds—made available to other private institutions—toward some sort of religious use,” he said.

Neither Harvard University nor the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency responded to multiple requests for comment regarding the rationale for restricting religious practices in the building and how the prohibition will be enforced.

The new building is set to open in December 2027. 

Economics Professor Edward Glaeser told The Harvard Crimson, “We want Economics to be the largest concentration at Harvard for the next 200 years.”

“And we hope that this building will help to make that happen,” he said.