Following protest from CIA Director Mike Pompeo and others, Harvard University said on Friday that it will not appoint Chelsea Manning a visiting fellow at the university's Kennedy School of Government. Manning is the former Army private convicted of leaking classified information. 

Kit Parker is a Harvard professor — he's also veteran of two tours in Afghanistan. He says his phone was "blowing up" with calls from military members and veterans asking him what was going on at Harvard.  

"To bring someone in who as a member of the military broke faith with her brothers and sisters in arms, put America's warriors at risk by divulging classified information – that's a traitor," Parker said.

Parker says he resigned as a faculty affiliate from the institute where Manning was to be a fellow.

Pompeo, a Harvard graduate, scrapped a scheduled talk at the university on Thursday over Manning's appointment. He says he didn't make the decision lightly, citing military and intelligence officials who believe that the leaks endangered the lives of CIA employees.

Earlier Thursday, Mike Morell, former deputy director and acting director of the CIA, sent a resignation letter to Harvard saying he could not be part of an organization that "honors a convicted felon and leaker of classified information."

Harvard said although she will no longer be a visting fellow, Manning will still speak at the Kennedy School.

Parker said he doesn't think Manning should be speaking there.

"Chelsea Manning released papers and revealed the identities of intelligence operators in a war that's still going to this day," Parker said. "And now she will walk the halls of Harvard Kennedy School with the national security fellows — U.S. military officers who have served down range, maybe whose identities might themselves have been compromised by her. Now they're going to share the same academic halls. And and she's going to lecture to them as if she holds the moral high ground, when she put them in jeopardy. It's absurd."

Manning was convicted in 2013 of leaking more than 700,000 U.S. documents. Her sentence was commuted by former President Barack Obama.