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Dear Wags,
We took an oath last December: Thou shall not write about Harvard. We had good reasons for this, the first being that a weird obsession with the joint infects media and political discourse. The second is that the more one talks about Harvard —even if one is slagging off Harvard—the more Harvard internalizes that it’s worth talking about. And that is insufferable.
It’s not that we think a 387-year-old global institution with a $50.9 billion endowment isn’t important. It’s that it’s always discussed in vapid ways. Harvard is many things, but it will never be an instrument of so-called social justice, anymore than Google is. Its most recent president was defenestrated as much for jeopardizing a crimson largesse as for congressional testimony and academic oopsies. Last year, the president of Stanford, a safety school you may have heard of, was forced out over misconduct allegations (uncovered by a student journo). In a comparative tally of New York Times stories, the Cardinal was smoked.
We break our oath not because of L’Affaire Gay. However cynical her pursuers (Elise Stefanik, Harvard College ‘06, etc.), there was something to pounce on. Whether the gig is held by Claudine Gay or Ted Kaczynski, being president of Harvard— the $900,000-per annum CEO of an image-obsessed organization—means being dispensable. In any case, Harvard, like all fine institutions, has a long history of producing more careerist mediocrities than Nobel laureates. Behold D. John Sauer (Rhodes Scholar, Harvard Law School ‘11) arguing before a panel of the D.C. circuit that a president should be immune from all crimes he commits in office. Even, apparently, murder. This isn’t a sober argument from one of the best and the brightest. It’s an SNL skit (speaking of Harvard-infested institutions).
What then, is the matter with Harvard? Nothing that doesn’t afflict broader higher education and society. American colleges and universities, ostensibly the envy of the world, are obsessed with branding, big money, and bells and whistles. They pad administrations, pander to students, gaslight parents, and toady to mega donors, all while squeezing the professoriate. The most sought-after among them mouth platitudes about inclusion while rigging the game, in ingenious ways, for the powerful. They are less consumed with the life of the mind than fundraising. They debase the humanities and crank out far more dead-soul management consultants than intellectuals. By fetishizing exclusivity, they are falling short of their promise and distorting incentives down the educational food chain.
The closer one gets to Harvard or any elite institution, the more galling such hypocrisies are. That’s at the root of much of the fury at (Insert the name of your alma mater here). Yet for all its well-publicized failings, American higher ed— from Harvard down to a hardworking local community college — is remarkable. And essential. Funny how the people braying loudest about the irrelevance of college aren’t encouraging their kids to skip it.
At their best, universities unlock the potential of the most diverse and dynamic society on earth. Despite their missteps, that still happens. Americans moan about college, but the lucky ones know how transformative a great education is. Don’t save Harvard for Harvard’s sake. Make it, and every other school, better for the generations to come.
Yours Ever,
A. Chipping
