Harvard Economics Professor Roland Fryer is famous for pushing limits. He was a part of an early wave of economists that pioneered the use of economic methods to enact real world change, striving to improve public school programs in inner cities. In 2019, Fryer was suspended due to allegations of sexually harassing five employees at Harvard University throughout his tenure. He has returned to campus to teach both undergraduate and graduate courses, though he is barred from holding supervisory or advisory roles for the next two years. His return to campus has left some Harvard students questioning their institution’s priorities.
In 2019, multiple publicized university investigations found that he engaged in “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” towards employees in in-person conversation as well as text messages. During his suspensions, he was required to undergo 18 months of executive coaching before returning to the University in July 2021. This fall, he is teaching “Econ 1021: Using Markets to Solve Social Problems.”
At age 30, he became the youngest tenured Black professor at Harvard, after graduating in 2.5 years on a full scholarship at the University of Texas Arlington and earning his doctorate at Penn State. He won the Macarthur Genius Grant in 2011 and the prestigious John Bates Clark Medal in 2015, an award that signals the recipient is on the path to a Nobel Prize. Roland Fryer is truly a great economist who has continuously fought against the racial achievement gap and educational inequalities. But he is also deeply problematic.
Many students were shocked that Introduction to Economics professors David Laibson and Jason Furman chose him to be one of the six speakers for the series, “Economics in Action,” in which professors with diverging viewpoints give a 30-minute presentation followed by a 10-minute question and answer period.
This year was Fryer’s second in a row presenting, a rare feat for any of the speakers. In his opening marks, he stated that he wanted to do a great job tonight to hopefully be invited back next year for the third time.
Throughout the talk, Fryer was charismatic and entertaining; he continuously joked whether sending his daughter to hip-hop lessons at her private school in Westin, Massachusetts was really a good thing. His background as a hobby stand-up comedy performer shone through, helping highlight his truly groundbreaking work.
The content of his talk detailed his decades-long effort to improve under-performing public schools in inner cities. Focusing on improving the Houston Public Schools, Fryer introduced five reforms characterizing high performing private schools: such as attentive teachers and longer in-school hours. With his applied research methods, he was able to isolate what made a school “good,” then used those lessons to improve severely under-performing schools throughout the nation. This early research set him apart in the field, and ultimately won him a slew of rewards demonstrative of his trajectory.
Fryer did not delve into his more controversial research. In his June 2019 article in The Journal of Political Economy, he argued that the police did not express implicit bias because the increased number of African American shootings compared to those of white people was just a result of each culture’s relative crime rates. In an analysis of the Houston Police Department, he found that “on the most extreme use of force—officer-involved shootings—we find no racial differences either in the raw data or when contextual factors are taken into account.”
While well-educated Harvard Economics students may have been aware of these findings, Laibson and Furman did not give a disclaimer about Fryer’s history of controversy, nor did they delve into his suspension in their usually comprehensive introductions. Indeed, many students were oblivious of Fryer’s past.
When asked her opinions on the lecture, Mina Raj ’26 said, “Fryer was incredibly charismatic and inspiring, really demonstrating what it means to apply economic research to the real world.” Yet she was shocked that Furman and Laibson would bring him onto the stage without giving at least a brief disclaimer, even though Harvard seems to deem him no threat to students or employees.
Alex Carlin ’26, who knew of Fryer’s past before the talk, was also shocked that “Laibson and Furman would invite a controversial figure without mentioning his past.”
Harvard prides itself on being an open forum for ideas at all ends of the political spectrum, where students and professors can explore different viewpoints without being criticized by the majority. In fact, several Harvard professors have signed on to the recently created University of Austin in support of its mission for free speech.
Roland Fryer has every right to pursue his arguments to further his studies of the economy. But when these arguments are contentious enough to provoke backlash, and when the person sharing them has had troubling allegations in their past, students should be better informed, as budding economists striving to learn more information about their world.
Carly Brail ’26 (carlybrail@college.harvard.edu) writes Forum for the Independent.