Is Harvard launching free college courses on basic U.S. government understanding and "how to recognize a dictatorship" or a "dictatorship takeover" in response to recent actions from the Trump administration? No, that's not true: According to a Harvard spokesperson the "edX" program has existed since 2012 and it takes about 12 to 18 months to create a new course, so none have been created in response to recent events. The course catalog also doesn't feature any courses with the word "dictatorship" in the title or description, contrary to viral online messages.
One example of the viral message could be found in this Facebook post (archived here) published on May 26, 2025 with a description that read:
Link to the free classes:
https://pll.harvard.edu/catalog/free
Link to government courses, including free:
https://pll.harvard.edu/subject/government?page=0
Phone:
617.495.1000The current catalog of FREE COURSES at Harvard is being expanded, check their website to see which new courses are being added.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon May 26 06:38:55 2025 UTC)
Other viral messages Lead Stories reviewed looked like this:
(Image collage by Lead Stories)
Most of them claimed Harvard was "launching" or was "set to launch" a number of "free (online) college courses" that cover "U.S. Government Basics" or "Basic U.S. Government", "Understanding the Constitution" and "How To Recognize A Dictatorship Takeover".
The link to the course catalog often shared alongside the messages did not feature any courses about "dictatorship", as these search results (archived here) show.
Lead Stories reached out to Harvard by email and received following reply from Sarah Kennedy-O'Reilly, the Assistant Director, Media Relations & Communications:
The link you provided is to the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning and includes courses from HarvardX. These courses have been offered for free since the creation of edX in 2012/2013, with a nominal charge for certificates upon course completion.
Harvard and MIT created edX in 2012 to bring low-priced quality education to learners across the world. This is a long-standing project of the university consistent with our mission. More than 100 universities have now joined the project. Since edX's inception Harvard has reached over 30 million learners in the past decade in the US and around the world.
While there have been new courses added to the catalogue over time, it's important to note that these courses take roughly 12 - 18 months to build online so none have been created in response to recent events.
(Highlight by Lead Stories)
