Intuitively, the turmoil likely causes the decrease.
Let's say we have 3 groups:
1. Support Palestine 2. No strong opinion 3. Support Israel.
Before the Hamas massacre, the 3 groups already apply to Harvard.
Now that Harvard showed to support Palestine borderline Hamas. It alienates Number 3 and partly Number 2.
Number 1 already applies to Harvard therefore doesn't increase in size.
The administration's response to protests has a chilling effect and discourages students who care about their right to protest.
I think your first sentence is completely accurate and as a result I'm going to pay less attention to my intuition.
I doubt this is true. Harvard suppressed protests many times in the past. That didn't seem to discourage students in the past. This is not new.
> I think your first sentence is completely accurate and as a result I'm going to pay less attention to my intuition.
Because it merely goes against your intuition. That's all. Let's not act like you would require definite proof for everything.
Could you share some history with us? How was it the same and how different than what happened recently.
Also, the suppression of the president of Harvard by outside forces seems new?
> Also, the suppression of the president of Harvard by outside forces seems new?
Yeah, many are disappointed that it needed outside force. They are less likely to apply to Harvard now compared to then. That definitely contributes.
Do you have evidence of that, both that it's a commonplace point of view and that it affected admissions?
Intuitively, I don't think there are new people who start liking Harvard because of this fiasco. Most people already like Harvard. However, people who stop liking Harvard are probably plenties due to different views.
> that it's a commonplace point of view
You can look at comments on Hacker news, Reddit, and twitter.
Emphasis on "many". I didn't claim "majority". I know what you were trying to get at, so it seems like a good thing to clarify.