Trump Campaign Aides to Attend Harvard Event; Protests Planned

Update: Steve Bannon will no longer be in attendance. Full story here.

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Two senior members of President-elect Donald Trump's campaign (and future White House staffers) are listed as participants in an upcoming Harvard University conference, and protests are already planned.

According to the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics schedule, both Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and chief executive Steve Bannon are confirmed guests, along with a host of political reporters and other campaigns' staffers.

Bannon in particular has been the subject of widespread condemnation, appointed by Trump to serve as chief strategist and senior counselor to the president, despite his ties to Breitbart News, a site that serves as a haven for the so-called "alt-right," a nominally Republican group notorious this election cycle for spreading commentary and memes considered racist, xenophobic, misogynist and anti-Semitic.

So far, more than 350 say they plan to protest Bannon's presence at Harvard Wednesday, according to a Facebook event page first reported by The Boston Globe.

Its organizers write:

Stephen Bannon and Trump Advisors will be speaking at the Harvard Kennedy School this Wednesday, November 30. Trump brought racist ideologues into the mainstream. Harvard is furthering the process of normalization for racist hate. We do not accept hate and bigotry as normal or legitimate. Come protest. Then help us organize.

Bannon joined Trump's campaign staff after turnover earlier in the race and was subsequently appointed chief strategist and senior counselor following Trump's victory.

His and Conway's attendance is part of a larger event whose confirmed participants include university staff, reporters and campaign leaders from numerous other Republican candidates' campaigns, as well as leaders from the Clinton-Kaine campaign.

Conway is slated to speak Thursday evening alongside former Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook. The segment is entitled "War Stories: Inside Campaign 2016."

Here in Massachusetts, members of the state's all-Democrat congressional delegation have condemned Bannon's appointment in no uncertain terms.

Bannon photo by Don Irvine; Conway photo by Gage Skidmore; both courtesy Flickr/Creative Commons