February 23, 2006
The Left's Coup D'Etat at Harvard
By Thomas Lifson
The American
left, long in decline, has shored up its base, definitively seizing
the high ground of American academia. The resignation of Lawrence
Summers as president of Harvard University, the nation’s
oldest, and the world’s richest and most prestigious university,
marks a significant coup d’etat for the left.
A faction,
only a plurality
within one segment of the university, the Faculty of Arts and
Sciences, has proven its ability to drive from office a brilliant
and energetic leader who had been committed to pushing Harvard
a little bit back toward the political center.
The breaking
point began to unfold when Summers dared to entertain as a possible
hypothesis that there might be inherent differences between men
and women, which in turn might affect the success females experience
in mathematical and scientific endeavors. It has now been established
that orthodox feminism, not free intellectual inquiry, determines
what may be said by the leaders of Harvard. “Veritas,”
Latin for “truth” should be replaced as Harvard’s
official motto by some other expression. Perhaps the motto of
the Red Guards during China’s Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution: “Politics in command.”
But Summers’
sins
were multiple.
He dared to suggest to Afro-American Studies Professor Cornell
West that recording rap albums was not consistent with his scholarly
function. He encouraged Harvard to return ROTC to campus, from
which it had been expelled in an earlier wave of leftist bullying
in 1969, and commended the value of patriotism. He spoke of the
problem of grade inflation. And he dared to suggest that anti-Israel
agitation, in the absence of comparable agitation over the same
issues existing in other countries, smelled of anti-Semitism.
Summers was correct
on each and every one of these points. Almost undoubtedly, a broad
majority of Americans would support him, if informed of the specifics
and asked about them. But America’s campuses are becoming
further and further removed from America’s mainstream values,
a situation which will benefit neither academia nor society in
the long run.
The visible abandonment
of the disinterested pursuit of the truth at a flagship institution
undermines the rationale for taxpayer-funded grants and loans,
subsidies to state institutions, private philanthropy, and ultimately
to the prestige which is the foundation of the academy’s
power in American life. At a time when knowledge and innovation
matter more than ever, a critical generator of these resources
is going on the fritz.
One would think that
when leadership of an institution powered by a nearly $26 billion
endowment is being contested, there would be a fight to the end.
Instead, Summers preemptively surrendered. Presumably this means
that he understood he lacked the backing (where it counts –
on the Harvard Corporation) to endure in the face of a challenge.
What is bizarre
is that the challenge came only from leftists, who so far have
failed to demonstrate more than a plurality of support within
only one of the many faculties which comprise Harvard.
The Harvard
Corporation, which governs Harvard University, could boast
that it is the oldest corporation in the Western Hemisphere. Some
within Harvard like to note that Harvard is also the world’s
first decentralized corporation. Each of the faculties –
such as Law, Medicine, Business, Dentistry, Design, Public Health,
Education, Divinity, and the grand daddy of them all, Arts and
Sciences – has its own endowment account, sets its own tuition,
appoints its own faculty (tenure is subject to approval of the
president – one of the few direct powers Summers enjoyed),
and generally governs itself.
There is an old saying
within administrative circles at Harvard: “Every Tub its
Own Bottom,” (so familiar it is abbreviated ETOB) meaning
(among other things) that the price of such autonomy is that the
impecunious Divinity School or Education School must scramble
to pay their bills, never mind that the Faculties of Medicine,
Law and Business experience much greater success in dunning their
wealthy graduates for donations.
The Faculty of Arts
and Sciences, which includes humanities and social sciences faculty
members, is the most leftist-inclined among the various “tubs.”
Because the FAS teaches undergraduates, as well as graduate students
not enrolled in the professional schools, it tends to be regarded
as the “real” university. Its classrooms and offices
dominate Harvard Yard and the central campus in Cambridge familiar
to most visitors.
Because so many undergraduates
go on to enjoy great material success, the FAS is able to raise
significant monies from alumni, and receives large gifts from
outsiders to establish academic programs, research institutes,
and other organs for funding and carrying out scholarship and
teaching.
The seven
members of the Harvard Corporation evidently failed to rally around
Summers, even though he serves as one of them. The fatal weakness
of this power elite is that much of university life depends on
willing adherence to norms and standards, rather than on incentives,
detailed regulations, and penalties. This reliance on social control
mechanisms rather than formal structures, empowers minority factions
to create such a ruckus that fears of “ungovernability”
arise. As the Boston Globe editorialized
today, “Summers was losing the ability to be effective….”
The lesson is now
clear. Even the most powerful of universities can be bullied by
a minority within a minority segment of the university. By yelling
and protesting, by embarrassing with a potential vote of non-support,
and ultimately by threatening non-compliance with the sacred informal
rules governing academic life, the wealthy and influential members
of even the most prestigious governing boards can be cowed.
Because Harvard, for
better or worse, is a role model for much of the rest of American
higher education, the lesson will be learned on every campus.
Truth is out and the power of protestors is in.
A nascent dark age
threatens the heart of our national ability to discover new knowledge,
right at the critical point where young minds are trained and
basic outlines of knowledge are set. It does not augur well for
anyone other than enemies of our civilization, who reject new
knowledge and innovation.
Thomas
Lifson is the editor and publisher of The
American Thinker.
