Ruth Wisse, Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard, in today’s WSJ Opinion Journal:
The resignation of Lawrence Summers as president of Harvard turns the spotlight on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), which has consecrated more time and energy to his ouster than to any other project of the past five years. Until now, all blame has been leveled at the president: “Fear and manipulation have been used to govern maliciously,” charged one professor, who has since been awarded with a deanship. But now that these cowering professors have successfully unseated their president, scrutiny will quite rightly be leveled at them. What do they gain from their victory, and what does the rest of the university stand to lose?
The movement to unseat Mr. Summers remains a mystery to most people outside Harvard. In the early days of his presidency, he challenged several tenured professors to account for the direction of their research and teaching. After some faculty had signed a petition urging divestment from Israel, he warned against the recurrence of anti-Semitism in a new guise. At an academic conference on the under-representation of women in science, he speculated on the implications of the differences between male and female test scores. At convocation ceremonies he congratulated Harvard students who served in the ROTC, which had been banned from the campus since the days of the Vietnam War.
Each of these actions offended one faculty interest group or another, and jointly they signaled a bold style of leadership in a direction broadly perceived as “conservative”–though it was in the service of once-liberal ideals.
Since most Americans think it appropriate for a president to thus demonstrate his stewardship and leadership, they could not understand why such actions should have triggered faculty revolt. Even members of the media had trouble understanding what the fuss was about: incredulous, for example, that academics would protest against any expressed opinion. The governing body that appointed Mr. Summers and gave him a mandate for change, the Harvard Corporation, seemed for its part to welcome the energy he brought to the job. Several neglected campus units, such as the Law School and the School of Education, flourished as a result of his interventions. Mr. Summers strongly supported new investments in science and technology, areas where Harvard had been falling behind.
Harvard students frankly blossomed under the special attention he paid them. No university president in my experience had ever taken such a warm personal interest in undergraduate education. Not surprisingly, the students return his affection, polling three to one in favor of his staying on. The day he announced his resignation, they were out in force in Harvard Yard, chanting “Five More Years!”
The student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, has been outspoken in its criticism of the faculty that demanded the president’s ouster. “No Confidence in ‘No Confidence’ “ ran the headline of an editorial demonstrating the spuriousness of the charges being brought against the president, and reminding faculty to stay focused on the educational process that ought to be its main concern.
Hence, supporters of the president are right to be dismayed by the corporation’s decision to seek or to accept Mr. Summers’s resignation. My colleague Alan Dershowitz calls it an “academic coup d’état by . . . the die-hard left of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.” A second colleague, Steven Pinker, thinks that the president may have lost the fight himself a year ago when he apologized to antagonists for his political incorrectness instead of holding his intellectual ground. For the moment, the attackers have won the day, asserting their right to dictate to the rest of the university the accommodations they favor.
But student response to the ouster suggests another long-term outcome. Although the activists of yesteryear may have found a temporary stronghold in the universities, a new generation of students has had its fill of radicalism. Sobered by the heavy financial burdens most of their families have to bear for their schooling, they want an education solid enough to warrant the investment. Chastened by the fall-out of the sexual revolution and the breakdown of the family, they are wary of human experiments that destabilize society even further. Alert to the war that is being waged against America, they feel responsible for its defense even when they may not agree with the policies of the current administration. If the students I have come to know at Harvard are at all representative, a new moral seriousness prevails on campus, one that has yet to affect the faculty members because it does not yet know how to marshal its powers.
For all that is correct in this assessment, none of it, unfortunately, does much to address the underlying problem:
those who plan to go on to position whereby hard-left progressive influence carries the most power—activist journalism disguised as mainstream reporting and academics within the humanities and social sciences (who are as insular a group of self-reinforcing thinkers as can be found anywhere), will continue to hold sway over the cultural discourse—and will continue to influence public policy—at least until their stranglehold on the dissemination of philosophical ideas is broken by the alternative media and, most important, a revolution in higher education.
Thus far, online education has been dubious at best—part of the problem being that it is sneered at by established and long accredited academic institutions who largely determine the what gets labeled legitimate scholarship.
As a society, an important way to fight back against such a monopoly over education is to promote alternative venues that carry with them an intellectual heft—coupled with a commitment to non-ideological hiring and promotional practices—that will be recognized by employers.
Blogs have shown that mainstream journalism can be assailed. But they have also shown that supporters of mainstream journalism can join the fray to undermine new media attacks on establishment journalism by way of new media itself (and let’s face it—just as many rightwing sites are extensions of talk radio conservatism, many leftwing blogs are simply defenders of the status quo, seeking to undermine as reactionary and overstated the complaints of those who recognize in the contemporary media and academy the disproportionate representation of a particular world view).
And so any change in higher education that begins to elevate to the status of legitimacy certain alternative forms of higher education will be met with a powerful counterattack meant to demonize them. But because the resources for establishing and maintaining such non-conventional forms of higher learning will be relatively cheap comparing to traditional brick and mortar institutions, the opportunity for the movement to flourish—provided it delivers the kind of fairminded, classically liberal education it promises—the chances of their succeeding are not farfetched, particularly in a culture that is more and more wired into the world of cyber dynamics.
Perhaps this is all a pipedream—but had I the the capital of, say, a George Soros, and it was coupled with a very pro-liberal (in its traditional, non-pejorative sense) mindset—I would be looking to establish a system of education that was able to compete to the hiveminded radicalism that has taken over many of our traditional institutions of higher learning.
But alas, I barely have money for lunch. So, you know, from my end, simply floating the idea—and throwing the occasion $20 to FIRE” title=”F.I.R.E.”>F.I.R.E.—will have to do.
The two are incompatible in practice. You can’t get that rich in free markets (necessary to true liberalism), and those who’ve got it know it. The “rich libertarian” is the rarest of media-mythological creatures.
That all our Great Institutions hive-mind fashionable variants of statism is not an accident of post-’60s history. When the rhetoric of aristocratic centralization changes from “left” to “right,” so will Harvard…but not really. As ever.
The preceding BoZ boilerplate is merely an excuse to post this: I had to temporarily block commons.pajamasmedia.com to get your front page to load. Something’s gone screwy. Might be just me having trouble, but probably not. Comments aren’t flying in. Put on your nerd pants and investigate.
We may be seeing the glimmer of a candle in a dark room.
I hope this woman has some likeminded colleagues in Cambridge. I also hope the feelings and thoughts of the students are as she portrays. To me, this reads a little as if she’s preaching to the choir.
Another “failed academic”?
Summers never should have kow-towed to the idiots. The best defense is a good offense.
Haha. That was a good one.
Apparently Summers was also trying to change the allocation of decisionmaking in the university, taking power away from the various schools and centralizing it at his office or other central university-wide offices. That’s part of the reason for the FAS revolting.
You could go to Patrick Henry or Ave Maria or Bob Jones. And then get a job with a republican congressman. Or you could just worship Leon Kass.
Since Jeff is apparently on top of his house staring at his navel and sounding his mantra, I presume to fix the link to FIRE, or Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. It’s an outstanding organization.
…and while you’re checking out FIRE, check out Brainwashing 101, Evan Mahoney’s short documentary. It’s all anecdotal, which is a weakness (though how you could make it any other way, I don’t know) – but the anecdotes he records, which include his personal experience trying to talk to the administration of Cal Poly about a lawsuit they lost (thanks to FIRE), should never have occurred on any campus.
As a proud holder of the silver medal slacker degree (psychology, magnum cum bong, sociology having taken the gold that year) I often wonder if these social “science” poseurs are so touchy because they know what frauds they are. Then I remember how my abnormal psych thesis on Thomas Szasz and “The Myth of Mental Illness” was received and am sure of it.
Its a commonplace that politics is most vicious when the stakes are small. Unfortunately, the destruction of Harvard was the result. But actually Harvard has not been a great university for decades.
I attended college just down Mass. Ave. in Cambridge at MIT. Got there in ‘63, dropped out in ‘65 on account of irresponsible drinking habits. Returned in ‘69 after a voluntary stint in the Army including a rotation in Vietnam. The place had already changed for the worse. Excellence for its own sake had lost its luster as it was denigrated all around. At Harvard where I took a few courses the feeling was the same.
As a consequence, I have never donated a dime.
Don’t waste your money sending your kids back East to school, they will get the same crap closer to home at 1/4 the price.
I hear Anchoress has joked about “home-colleging” her child. Not a bad idea.
If these students were as truly broken up about the resignation of Summers as they seem to be fronting, then they could easily take their $40K per year and transfer themselves to another Ivy. I’m sure that Penn or Dartmouth or (shudder) even Yale would appreciate a whole bunch of Cantabs coming to their schools for the sake of academic excellence over political expediency.
Or they could be doing this just to score chicks. Nothing wrong with that – it’s what got me where I am today.
You’re assuming that academic excellence exists in those places. Unfortunately, I don’t think it really exists anywhere anymore. Even the University of Chicago ain’t what it used to be. Might as well just save your money and go to your state school for an accounting degree.
I’m pretty sure, noah, that the quality of the crap at the local state university, as you state, is hardly any better than that found in the “Iveys”, though you are correct that the cost is 1/4 that of the prestigious “back east” institutions. (Harvard has lots of company!) Lower cost and the diminished level of pretension at “lesser” institutions (though not much diminished) are the only advantages I see. Unfortunately, today’s state university is no particular bargain at 1/4 the cost. I agree with Jeff that some alternative to the traditional “bricks and mortar” institution, whether cyber-based or not, likely holds the future. Like the MSM, higher education in its present form is in an unrecognized yet inevitable condition of decline. Increased cost associated with a lesser quality product has never been a recipe for success. As such, anything that can be done to change the equation that presently exists should be promoted, and like you I refuse to pledge even one thin dime (to any of the three institutions that believe I owe them some form of financial allegiance). I do not know much about the University of Phoenix; whether it is good, bad, or indifferent, but there was no market for it 25 years ago and it has grown incredibly. There is a reason for that and, while it may not be the precise model for the future, something similarly directed may be. I have always felt that one gets out of an education as much as one brings to the table in the form of effort, desire, curiosity, and intellect. Doesn’t much matter where it is, how prestigious a place may consider itself to be, or what form it assumes.
Strip them of their non profit and charitable status. Let them spew their commie crap at their own expense. Top it off by making them ineligible for Federal aid.
Institutions like Phoenix and St. Leo, with lots of online courses, are very popular i the military. It allows a servicemember to continue an education despite moving every three or four years and taking semesters off for deployments.
What will do the greatest damage over the long term to the university is that employers will increasingly see anyone with a degree in any sort of “soft” field (i.e. non-math or hard science-related) as a nincompoop… and thus essentially unemployable. I really don’t think Starbucks and Whole Foods will be able to create enough barrista and bagger jobs to pick up the slack.
So, when people realize that you’ve paid $60K+ for your liberal arts degree, and are now underemployed and de facto bankrupt, you’ll begin to see a lot of near-empty classrooms in the humanities.
It’ll be interesting to see how donations to colleges fall off, too. If you’re part of the right-hand side of the 50/50 divide in this country, why support the people who despise you and everything you stand for?
monkeyboy, thanks for pointing that out – I hadn’t thought of it, but of course it’s obvious now that you mention it. One of my (Air Force) dad’s assignments was set up to enable him to get an MBA at night (my mom was thrilled, with three kids in diapers); how much easier would it have been, how much more flexibility in his assignments would the USAF have had, if they’d been able just to have him register for an online program? They could have stationed him anywhere they actually needed him rather than within commuting distance of the school they had an arrangement with, or however it was done.
TW: There’s a charter school in my area that is apparently all-online – the only one I’ve heard of that isn’t at college level. I wonder how it’s going.
“After some faculty had signed a petition urging divestment from Israel, he warned against the recurrence of anti-Semitism in a new guise.”
And now. no doubt, he is saying that his ouster is “antisemitic in effect if not in intent.”
This kind of crap reduces the concept of antisemitism to utter meaninglessnessâ€â€yet I might have expected it.
“Ruth Wisse, Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard,”
I must remember to tell Jim Leher about this distinguished “chair.” It certainly is functioning in the proper spirit of Marty Peretz.
I wonder how employers will feel about kids that get degrees in universities that follow the model that some right-wing legislators are proposing. Kids being able to sue if they are offended, or requesting their own syllabus.
Thats how you make a future workforce.
All these are viable topics, but Summers got canned for cronyism and being insufferable–which, in the case of HIS cronies, is redundant.
Summers had much the same rep in Washington. It is disengenuous to blame his unpopularity on Harvard. Moreover, Harvard will survive the loss of the Larry Summerses of the world. It always has.
Well, my sphere of influence in corporate America is exceedingly small, but I would consider a degree in certain “soft” fields to be a negative. Let’s just say that certain degrees tend to have a high correlation with grievances.
I’m just looking to hire the person who is willing and able to do the job. I don’t care if he graduated from Harvard or Hard Hat.
“Let’s just say that certain degrees tend to have a high correlation with grievances. I’m just looking to hire the person who is willing and able to do the job.”
Padua, Paris and Harvard weren’t founded to crank out engineers and MBAs. And if I were CEO at Christie’s your art history doctorate might matter.
Taking a utilitarian view of education has its merits, but also its limits. We are graduating drones who know the cost of everything but the value of nothing.
“Ruth Wisse, Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard, in today’s WSJ Opinion Journal”
I wonder, what is the yidddish word for “sinecure?”
there seems to be an underlying theme that the less intellectually demanding fields (social sciences,humes) are Democratic enclaves and peopled by not very bright profs,I would suggest this is only half right.And it may be the cause of the rabidness of the response to Dr. Summers.(Though I note a physics prof has been a prominent critique.
I do believe certain fields are more regurg fields than thought provoking or knowledge based.I also believe one can get aa bachelor’s in some fields without taking a tough class.(In baasic terms,any physics major can ace a sociology class;and some sociology majors could pass physics.)This may be the cause of the rancor against Summers.”If we start to examine some things,who knows where the idiot will stop?”