Harvard University learned a lesson of its own: if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Harvard was more erudite, of course, as it announced Tuesday that the University and its leaders will no longer take official positions on controversial public policy issues, it was reported.
It’s not that the Ivy League school doesn’t have anything to say, the progressives larding academia are loathe to miss a chance to pontificate, it’s that it can’t handle backlash, scrutiny or criticism.
This follows the blistering months on the hot seat after former Harvard President Claudine Gay’s ham-fisted Congressional testimony on campus antisemitism, the school’s lack of action in protecting Jewish students being harassed, and the general bungling of its message on the Israel-Hamas war and Palestinians.
The Anti-Defamation League gave Harvard a failing grade on its handling of antisemitism, and it’s been raked over the coals over its lackluster response to the issue.
Harvard decided it will see itself out.
As the Harvard Crimson reported, the school’s new “our lips are sealed” stance follows a report from a faculty-led “Institutional Voice” working group, which advised leadership to not “issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function.”
One would think such a statement, essentially “we’re a university, our job is to teach” would be unnecessary. It should be, but this is higher education in 2024, where education takes a back seat to progressive indoctrination, and everyone has a bullhorn.
“There will be close cases where reasonable people disagree about whether a given issue is or is not directly related to the core function of the university,” the report stated.
“The university’s policy in those situations should be to err on the side of avoiding official statements.”
When in doubt, keep your mouth shut.
The policy applies to all University administrators and governing board members, as well as deans, department chairs, and faculty councils, according to the working group, to further clamp down on anyone going rogue.
Interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber wrote in an email that he accepted the working group’s recommendations, which were also endorsed by the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.
This being Harvard, there’s a “but.” While the recommendations bring Harvard closer in line with peer universities with stances of institutional neutrality, the working group’s report and Garber’s announcement were careful to highlight that the Harvard will not be neutral.
“Our report argues that the University is fundamentally committed to a non-neutral set of values specifically, getting to the truth by experiment, open inquiry, and debate,” said Noah R. Feldman ’92, who co-chaired the working group and serves as a Harvard Law School professor.
“The University is regularly under attack today, as truth itself is under attack,” Feldman added. “This report says the University should not be neutral in that important matter of the future of universities.”
Harvard should also ensure that “open inquiry, and debate” applies to all ideas, not just the liberal ones.
