Back in April, Harvard philosophy professor Edward J. Hall wrote, “Furor over diversity statements in hiring is a red herring…we should direct anger at its proper target: not diversity statements themselves, but rather the horribly distorted view that has taken […]
Harvard University
Harvey Mansfield and conservatism at Harvard
The 92-year-old political philosopher retired from Harvard’s government department last year. His students include Tom Cotton, Andrew Sullivan, Alan Keyes, Bill Kristol, Mark Lilla, and Francis Fukuyama. Mansfield recently talked with Tunku Varadarajan about progressivism, liberalism, and conservatism at Harvard. […]
Randall Balmer on the resignation of Claudine Gay at Harvard
Here is the American religious historian‘s column at Valley News: In the late 1980s, while I was teaching at Columbia University, I received an urgent request to attend a meeting at Union Theological Seminary. I don’t recall everyone who was […]
Yes, universities should offer courses on Taylor Swift
Should Harvard offer courses on Taylor Swift? Of course it should. Everyone is talking about a course at Harvard titled “Taylor Swift and Her World.” Here is some context from Stephanie Burt, the English professor who will be teaching the […]
Ben Sasse: “Harvard, Princeton, and Yale were originally founded as seminaries. They are seminaries once again.”Â
While I probably wouldn’t call early Harvard, Princeton, and Yale “seminaries,” I take Ben Sasse‘s point. As some of you recall, Sasse left the United States Senate earlier this year and became president of the University of Florida. Here is […]
University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill resigns
Here is CBS News: PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Liz Magill and Scott Bok, two top leaders at the University of Pennsylvania, resigned Saturday after days of criticism and pressure from donors, alumni and Jewish community members following Magill’s comments in a Congressional hearing on campus […]
The elite university presidents who testified before Congress are taking the heat
I have yet to watch the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn testify before Congress on the matter of campus antisemitism. But it does not look very good. This clip is pretty damning: The blowback has been strong and bipartisan. […]
Episode 123: “Drew Gilpin Faust on Growing-Up at Midcentury”
She was a privileged baby boomer who grew up on a horse farm in segregated Virginia. By her twenty-first birthday she had worked for peace in Communist Europe, traveled the country in the cause of racial justice, marched for voting rights […]
Conor Friedersdorf: “Students for Pogroms in Israel”
If you haven’t seen it yet, The Atlantic writer Conor Firedersdorf has written a critique of student activists who are “excusing murder and kidnapping” in Israel. Here is a taste of “Students for Pogroms in Israel“: Across America, millions of […]
Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers on the school’s silence on the Israel-Hamas war
In an earlier post today I noted that 31 Harvard University student groups have blamed the ongoing Israeli-Hamas war entirely on Israel. Lawrence Summers, the former president of Harvard University and Secretary of the Treasury at the end of the […]
The Washington Post praises recent moves to defend free speech on college campuses
Last month I wrote a post about Cornell University’s decision to reject a student resolution requiring faculty to issue trigger warnings for “traumatic conflict in the classroom.” Yesterday The Washington Post editorial board praised the Cornell decision and others like […]
Businessman Kenneth C. Griffin gives $300 million to the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences
The rich get richer. Here is The Harvard Gazette: Harvard University announced today that business leader and philanthropist Kenneth C. Griffin ’89 has made a gift of $300 million to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) to support the […]
Claudine Gay will be the 30th president of Harvard University
Here is The Harvard Crimson: Claudine Gay will serve as the 30th president of Harvard University, becoming the first person of color to hold the school’s top post, the University announced Thursday, concluding a five-month search. Gay, the current dean […]
A museum exhibit on Roe v. Wade
It’s at Harvard Schlesinger Library. Here is Jennifer Schuessler at The New York Times: In the corner of a ground-floor gallery at Harvard’s Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America sits a small plexiglass case, holding two cowboy […]
Does Harvard possess the remains of 7,000 Native Americans and enslaved people?
Here is Gillian Brockell at The Washington Post: Harvard University holds the human remains of thousands of Native American people, despite a 1990 federal law requiring their return, according to a draft report leaked to the student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson. […]
When Harvard grads attack the American “elite”
Someone recently left a message on my voicemail asking me if I saw myself as part of the “liberal elite.” He is one of the regular callers who leaves voice mails whenever I write something here or elsewhere that they […]
Ivy leaguers who are trying to destroy American democracy
What do Josh Hawley, Steve Mnuchin, Ben Carson, Wilbur Ross, Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Mike Pompeo, Ted Cruz, Elise Stefanik, and Kayleigh McEnany have in common? They all have degrees from Ivy League institutions and they are all, in one […]
Harvard’s Houghton Library digitizes its early American manuscripts
Here is Anne Buress at The Harvard Gazette: In a recent virtual curatorial discussion, Houghton librarian John Overholt took an item from the Colonial North America collections to share with his audience. Rather than highlighting a letter from John Hancock or a […]