In 1987, Allan Bloom’s bestselling book The Closing of the American Mind described
how higher education was failing our students and “impoverishing their souls.” Bloom
doubted that our colleges and universities could ever reestablish the ideal of
a classically liberal education. Sadly, even as academically esteemed an
institution as Harvard seems to be proving his skepticism right.
In a recent interview with political pundit William Kristol,
former Harvard President Lawrence Summers complained that a “creeping
totalitarianism” is casting a pall over our institutions of higher learning,
Harvard included. As administrators and students obsess over safe spaces and microaggressions,
educational excellence is being degraded by a “growing preference for emotional
comfort over academic inquiry.” Schools
are coddling a generation of militantly sensitive students while promoting a
politically correct orthodoxy that stifles intellectual freedom.
In one example Summers mentions, “Holiday Placemats for Social Justice” appeared in a Harvard undergraduate dining
hall last December. Created by the College’s Office for Equity, Diversity, and
Inclusion, the placemats promoted social justice talking points for students to
share with loved ones over the holidays, no doubt making for many an awkward
Christmas dinner. The talking points included such messages as “Racial justice
includes welcoming Syrian refugees.”
The placemats outraged alumni. Eighteen
representatives complained in a letter that “We do not think the offices of the
university should be in the business of disseminating ‘approved’ positions on
complex and divisive political issues.” University President Drew Faust weighed
in as well, calling the placemats “a really bad idea”:
“I don’t think the University should be
directing people—students, staff, faculty—what to say or what to think. The
University is a place that ought to foster robust discussion and disagreement,
and welcome all perspectives, and that did not seem to be consistent with the
message of the placemats.”
Exactly. The administrators responsible for
the placemats issued an apology, but the PC push continues at Harvard on other
fronts because, as Summers complained, some administrators have been “emboldened”
to see this as “their moment to establish a kind of orthodoxy.”
One of those who is seizing that moment is Rakesh
Khurana. Harvard’s undergraduate dean since 2014, Khurana seems determined to implement
a social justice agenda. He brought an end, for example, to the decades-old
title of “house master” – for a male faculty member who oversees a dormitory – over
the perception that the term resonates of slavery (will “master of arts” be
targeted next?). Khurana wrote that the change was made “to ensure that the
college’s rhetoric, expectations, and practices around our historically unique
roles reflects [sic] and serves [sic] the 21st century needs of residential
student life.”
But Khurana seems to be determining for
himself what those needs are allowed to be. Now he is angering alumni by pressuring – some say coercing – the
school’s all-male “final clubs” to accept women. Final clubs are off-campus
undergraduate social clubs that sprang up after Harvard banned traditional
fraternities in the 1850s. They have no formal relationship with the school,
but Khurana contends that they are exclusive, elitist, and not
“appropriate” for the university. He has asked such groups to consider whether
their values “align” with the school’s mission.
And what is that mission? According to its website, it is “to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society.” It
seems more likely that Khurana’s issue with the clubs is not that they fail to
align with this mission, but that – as an all-male tradition – they are an
impediment to social justice.
“The role of single-sex groups on campus
should be decided by students, not administrators,” said one alumnus. “Harvard
should stand for intellectual freedom and open debate and should set a clear
precedent of protecting minority viewpoints — especially those viewpoints with
which the current administration disagrees.”
But at least two of the eight all-male clubs
at Harvard have already bowed to Khurana’s reported “veiled threat” of
expulsion and decided to accept women. No word on whether he will go after the
five all-female final clubs.
Bartle Bull, a 1964 Harvard graduate and
self-described liberal, said that the administration is “working against
diversity, tolerance, and the freedom of association.” “Harvard as an
institution has been more and more controlling in the name of liberalism,” said
Bull. Another alumnus wondered, “What kind of values are they trying to impose
on students?”
The answer is that schools now are
passionately committed to tolerance and diversity in every way except
intellectually. Political
correctness enforces identity politics but is intolerant of debate, dissent,
alternative viewpoints, and criticism. The Harvard College “About” web page
boasts that the school encourages “intellectual risk-taking.” But the creeping
social justice totalitarianism Lawrence Summers laments suppresses any intellectual
growth at all, much less risk-taking.
Nearly 30 years after Allan Bloom’s book,
our colleges and universities are no closer to reopening the American mind.
From Acculturated, 2/3/16
