Congratulations are in order to Harvard University for rescinding its invitation to Private Manning to be a visiting fellow of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. The school had announced the visiting fellowship for the convicted spy only two days earlier. It was immediately met with objections; particularly pointed protests came from several figures who have ties to the school, including two CIA directors and distinguished journalist William Kristol.

The current director, Michael Pompeo, in a letter to Harvard, called Manning an “American traitor” and described Wikileaks, via which the ex-private exposed our secrets, as “an enemy of the United States.” A former acting director of the agency, Michael Morell, resigned as s senior fellow at the Kennedy School. He warned Harvard’s invitation to Manning would “assist” the ex-soldier’s “longstanding effort to legitimize” the “criminal path” the private “took to prominence.”

Manning was “honored” to be disinvited, according to a squib on Twitter in which the ex-soldier suggested that at Harvard “they chill marginalized voices under @cia pressure.” Harvard made a point of noting that it was not rescinding the chance for Manning to speak at the Kennedy School. It would withdraw just the title of visiting fellow, with all the distinction that implies. Harvard tried to anticipate objections that it had compromised, saying that was the way it should have been done in the first place.

We wouldn’t want to make too much of this contretemps, but at a time when our universities have been lurching so steadily to the left, it’s nice to see one of the greatest of them take a step back. The dean of the Kennedy School, Douglas Elmendorf, announced that in approving the title of visiting fellow for Private Manning he had made a “mistake.” He apologized to the former soldier and others “for not recognizing upfront the full implications of our original invitation.” Fair enough, though, as the saying goes, if it was a snake, it would have bit him.