Harvard’s commitment to its own way of thinking was on full display during President Claudine Gay’s abominable December 5th congressional testimony concerning campus anti-Semitism, subsequent revelations alleging her plagiarism in various publications (the current tally is about 40) including her dissertation, and the university leadership’s response.

After President Gay equivocated on Harvard’s response to anti-Semitism on its campus, the university’s governing body unanimously rushed to support her. The trustees made it plain to the world that they did not expect their president to live up to any common standard of human decency, intellectual honesty, or genuine scholarship. Her comments were amended, as would be her publications, and a quasi-apology was issued by means of a Harvard Crimson interview in which Gay lamented that she had “failed to convey what is my truth.” The university that has long had as its motto Veritas or “Truth” now proclaims Veritas Mea.

After President Gay’s face-plant, few in Cambridge seemed to understand what the fuss was about, and fewer seemed to realize the major devaluation that had brought upon the education that the school provides, and the degrees and honors that it bestows, especially those given to women and minorities.

Almost immediately, prominent corporations and law firms, led by alumnus and billionaire investor Bill Ackman, announced that they would no longer hire Harvard grads who had blamed Israel for Hamas’ attacks, and some even said they would never again hire anyone with a Harvard degree. How many future employers will wonder if a Harvard educated job applicant -- especially a member of a group smiled upon by the politically correct -- really did as well as their résumé indicates, or were held to any standards of honest scholarship?

This was not the first time that the university had caused great harm to those it claimed to champion. On June 29, 2023 the Supreme Court of the United States, in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. vs. President and Fellows of Harvard College ruled that “Harvard’s… admissions programs violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” The lawsuit had contended that Harvard (and the University of North Carolina) had intentionally discriminated against various Asian applicants in preference to other groups. In its ruling the court stated that “The universities’ main response to these criticisms is ‘trust us.’ They assert that universities are owed deference when using race to benefit some applicants but not others.” Refusing to accept the argument that trustworthy universities were exempted from the Constitution, the Court concluded that “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”

Vowing to comply with the Court’s decision but rejecting its logic, the university immediately began looking for ways to get around the court’s judgment, including taking a closer look at “lived experiences” of applicants in preference to more problematic considerations like grades and test scores. It reaffirmed its belief that “diversity and difference are essential to academic excellence.”

Harvard had long ago cast its lot with the grievance industry, trying its hand at social engineering under the guise of promoting diversity, and, not incidentally, creating a highly lucrative employment program for like-minded liberals. The theory of the diversity/grievance industry is that differences among people need to be emphasized, quantified, and adjusted according to commonly agreed-upon criteria, and that this will benefit society. The fact that this concept is quite similar to what used to be called "discrimination" is unfortunate, and appears to concern Supreme Court justices much more than Harvard elites.

It should also be noted that elite academia’s conception of diversity encompasses many categories: race, ethnicity, sex, religion, and sexual preferences and behavior. There is one notable exception: intellectual diversity. Universities, including Harvard, often say they champion intellectual diversity, but efforts toward that goal, and metrics to back claims of progress in attaining it, tend to be missing. The result is that it can be difficult to find anthropogenic global warming skeptics among university geologists, voucher champions in schools of education, or small government/free market capitalists in economics departments.

At many elite universities, not only are diverse opinions not encouraged, they aren’t tolerated. Two days after President Gay’s congressional testimony, Harvard canceled the scheduled appearance of a congressman who had been critical of her testimony. Incidents like this help to explain why the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which rates free speech on college campuses, gave Harvard its lowest rating.

If Harvard really has a deep commitment to intellectual diversity, then it should fire all of its diversity officers.

With its admission process annoyingly constrained by the U.S. Constitution, a diversity commitment that seems to be fostering division and outright hatred, faculty and students who embrace anti-Semitism and plagiarism while being intolerant of free speech, Harvard appears to be doing the exact opposite of what a great university should do. Having abandoned its mission to pursue truth, preferring its own truth, Harvard is now seriously damaging those it purports to care about most, and appears determined to go right on doing so.

Intellectually dishonest, Harvard is now engaged in academic navel gazing, and it likes what it sees. At its core Harvard is anti-intellectual.

Griff Hogan is a retired educator living in Charleston, South Carolina. He has a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Image: Magicpiano