Whatever you may think of Henry Kissinger, and I try to not think of the man too often, he likely had an insight when he said, "The reason academic politics are so vicious is there is so little at stake."
The truth is, presidents of universities can, if they choose, do nothing more than address commencement ceremonies and then disappear for a year. Two college presidents passed the baton while I was in college and if neither of them had ever set foot on campus, it would have made not one iota of difference to my college education.
Nor would it have mattered much to the college itself, even in the long run, as far as I can see.
Some of the deans made a difference to me, but only because I was a student in their classes.
Ira Magaziner, a classmate, made a difference to the college, because he seized the opportunity presented by the closure of college campuses in 1968 to get a radical "new curriculum" passed in 1969, just before we graduated. This curriculum virtually eliminated grades and requirements for students to major in different departments.
Twenty years later, the owner of the Washingtonian Magazine who also owned a wide newspaper empire, told me he would not hire graduates of my college because he didn't know what their grades meant--it was all fun and games at that college he said. He was on the Board of Trustees of Cornell University.
I replied, accurately I believe, the loss was his, not those alumni he turned away from his enterprises; from the notes in my alumni magazine, I could see graduates were finding plenty of openings at the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. The fact is, ever since the new curriculum went into effect at the college, the competition to get in soared, and the applications soared, the quality of the students flocking to campus improved by any measure, placing it just behind the big three-Harvard/Yale/Princeton--as a status symbol.
In fact, for the first time, some students chose the college over acceptances at the big three.
So, when Claudine Gay finally resigned as President of Harvard, I had to shrug.
So what?
Who cares, apart from Ms. Gay herself, and some members of the Harvard Board of Governors really cares?
One has to ask, why should anyone on the Harvard Board, or any Harvard alumni actually have any say about who is "running" Harvard?
As an alumnus of a college, I realize I do not really know what is happening on campus in any substantive way, and even if I did know, why should my opinion matter?
Thomas Jefferson wrote about the idea that succeeding generations should not be captive to ideas of his own generation; as times and the needs and issues of the future changed, so too would the rules and beliefs of new generations have to change. Lincoln picked up that thread, saying that as the issues of his own time were new, his own generation had to be willing to think anew.
The gigantic egotism of the members of the Harvard Board flickers through so many of the articles about their role in President Gay's removal. These are heirs to the Tootsie Roll fortune, investment bankers, hotel fortune heirs, people who, for the most part, started life rich and got richer. More money than brains types, one suspects.
And as for Ms. Gay--well, it's not her fault she was picked for all the wrong reasons, and she could be no better than she could be. Far as I can see, she is not a nasty person, and she values kindness, tolerance and open minded discussion. Nothing wrong with that.
But she had to navigate an environment where, as Brett Stephens observed, values of "social justice" ousted those of excellence and the words "Equity, diversity and inclusion" appear on banners around campus, where Jewish students were said to no longer "feel safe" on campus. Where nobody could actually say what "free speech" means or what "hate speech" is.
Now, I like the idea of "diversity" if it means people from different parts of the country, from different sorts of families, the sons and daughters of coal miners mixing with those of hotel chain heirs, and maybe even some who look different, say Black or Asian are as prevalent as whites. But the Benneton advertisement aspect of different colors all mixing is not a goal, but an outcome, I would hope, of "diversity." And what does "equity" mean? Does that mean there will be as many kids with low test scores as those who score high? And "inclusion"? Well, I like the idea that any kid on campus can be included in any club, sport, class or dining hall and nobody excluded because of social status or race. But when you have a dormitory for African Americans or a Greek fraternity which is all white, is that "inclusion"?
Young Harvard grads have for decades, spoken about "dropping the H bomb" into conversations, on first dates, or job interviews or simple chats in the country club locker rooms. They meant that as soon as they revealed they had gone to Harvard, the perception of who and what they are changed and simple folk looked on them as some kind of mystical royalty, someone who had drawn the sword from the stone.
Or, at least, that's what these Harvard grads thought was going on.
For my part, I knew kids who went to Harvard from my own high school class, and I was not overwhelmed by this nascent royalty. The only thing different about them was they had straight A's, but they were by no means the brightest members of the class. In fact, I felt sorry for them. There were 3 in my class and 4 in the class ahead of me and I knew them all and they all seemed socially stunted, sadly repressed and spiritually dull.
The Harvard grads I met in medical school and as a house officer in my training program in medicine, were uniformly bright and confident, but mediocre performers, uninspired, people who knew how to put number 1 first and who were not the folks I'd want on duty if my sister were admitted, late at night, to their wards.
So, the fact is, Harvard--and in fact--throw in Yale, Princeton and Stanford, are places where a lot of smart people flock and bless them.
But there are, in absolute numbers, way more equally bright and talented people living, working and contributing to the forward push of progress outside those hallowed halls than in them.
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