Harvard Bleeds, Pigs Fly

It was with heavy heart that I read this morning's orgy of coverage of the resignation of Harvard president Larry Summers.  But as my heart sank further, I noticed something.  Pigs must be flying over Cambridge this morning, because the editorial pages of the Harvard Crimson and the Wall Street Journal agree.

Which begs the question: if you find yourself on the other side of this argument, what kind of legs are you standing on?  When the Crimsonest newspaper from the People's Republic of Cambridge and that bastion of good sense, the Wall Street Journal, agree, the only people left must be-- loonies? Moonbats? No.  The esteemed Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University.

As Professor Dershowitz rightly reminds us, Summers' resignation is a heavy blow for academic freedom in the university.  Summers' downfall was engineered by a hard-left faction of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, whose hatred for him reached mythic proportions with only minute fodder.  "Only at an American university campus could Mr. Summers, a former Clinton Treasury Secretary, be portrayed as a  radical neocon", remarks the ever-sage WSJ editorial page.

I fear for my dear alma mater, because if the orthodoxy of the hard left becomes the only permissible "truth" in this university it will cease to be relevant faster than the USSR ceased to be solvent.  I hope that as they select a new president, the Harvard Corporation keeps in mind the ideals of academic freedom, rigor, progress, and growth that so marked Summers' time and seek another president who will not merely kowtow to this angry faction of doddering dons and raise money hand over fist.

Comments

[Andrew Golis]

Just to be clear: the Crimson editorial board is not particularly far to the left. They are center, center-left at best.