Harvard Cancels Course On Policing Techniques After Uproar This story was updated at 4:10 p.m. with new information. Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is canceling a new course focused on evaluating the efficacy of military-style counterinsurgency techniques used to fight crime in Springfield, Massachusetts, after critics raised concerns about the ethical implications of that approach. The decision was announced Monday afternoon in an email from Harvard SEAS Dean Frank J. Doyle. "I want to assure members of the SEAS community that we are aware of, and take seriously, the concerns that some of you raised about the design and pedagogy of the proposed course," Doyle wrote.