In December 2025, the Harvard School of Public Health announced that Mary T. Bassett would step down as director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights, effective January 9, 2026, after seven years in the position[1][3]. Bassett was informed just hours before Dean Andrea Baccarelli's public announcement that she would have to leave her position[1][2]. The center will be reoriented to children's health and their early development[1][2]. Bassett will continue as a professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences[3]. The withdrawal followed prolonged political pressure on the Center's work on Palestinian health and human rights, which was criticized as one-sided in an April 2025 Harvard anti-Semitism report[2]. More than 1,000 signatories from Harvard and other universities, including Columbia, Brown, and Chicago, signed a petition for her reinstatement[1]. Pediatrician Kari C. Nadeau[6] became the interim director of the Center.