Steve Bannon, president-elect Donald Trump's chief strategist, has canceled a scheduled visit to Harvard University on Thursday.
Bannon was scheduled to speak at an event at Harvard's Kennedy School, but the Harvard Institute of Politics said it was contacted Tuesday and told that he would no longer be attending.
More than 1,000 Harvard students and area residents had indicated on a Facebook page that they were planning to protest his appearance.
Bannon, 62, is a 1985 graduate of Harvard Business School. He is one of Trump’s most controversial hires. He joined Trump's campaign as CEO in August after serving as the head of Breitbart News — a far-right outlet that is one of Trump's biggest backers.
He worked for Goldman Sachs, then started his own media-focused boutique investment banking firm. After selling the business, he became a film producer, which introduced him to conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart and author Peter Schweizer. Bannon led the Breitbart website, which has been widely condemned as racist, sexist and anti-Semitic.
Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook are still scheduled to attend the CNN "State of the Union" event at Harvard, where they are expected to share war stories from the 2016 presidential campaign.