A tale of two Ivies

Dartmouth gets the PR right, but may not be any more interested in ideological diversity than Harvard is

In Claudine Gay’s resignation statement — her last official act as president — she said:

[I]t has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor—two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am—and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.

(Emphasis added)

How fitting that Gay would exit the stage playing the race card, for it was that very card that accounts her for stage entrance as Harvard’s president. It’s hard to imagine that Harvard would have selected someone whose scholarship was so thin and unimpressive — and without a serious check of the extent to which her work was really hers — had she not been black.

Gay overlooks the fact that Elizabeth Magill, the other Ivy League president who couldn’t categorically say that calling for genocide violates her school’s anti-harassment policy, was gone within a few days after her appearance before Congress. And that was without any suggestion that Magill engaged in plagiarism.

Magill is white.

It took four weeks before Gay was out as president. In the end, she had to go for the very reason that I (and some other conservatives) wanted her to remain — her presidency was turning Harvard into a laughingstock.

Following her departure, Gay doubled down on nonsense in a New York Times op-ed. That piece is so self-servingly bad that the paper’s opinion editor felt compelled to call readers’ attention to four columns — by authors of diverging ideologies — that are critical of Gay.

In her op-ed, Gay sees the attack on her as an attempt by the right “to unravel public faith in pillars of American society.” But, as I just suggested, criticism of Gay was bipartisan. As one of my friends said days before Gay’s downfall, “when you’ve lost Ruth Marcus”. . . .

Is Harvard really a pillar of American society? I always thought our pillars were our our Constitution and the institutions and arrangements it established, our families, our religious beliefs, our military, and our police. All of them are under attack to one degree or another by the left.

I view Harvard as a pillar of the left. Arguably, that makes it a pillar of the attack on America’s real pillars. In any case, Harvard is not a pillar of American society.

Meanwhile, Dartmouth, my alma mater which no one considers a pillar of society, has managed to avoid most of the furor that engulfed Harvard. That’s partly because its president wasn’t called on to testify before Congress (who’s to say she would have performed better than Gay and Magill) and partly because Dartmouth doesn’t matter nearly as much as Harvard.

But I think it’s also because Dartmouth’s new president, Sian Leah Beilock, has handled herself skillfully since October 7.

That’s certainly Beilock’s view. In a memo to members of the Dartmouth community, she writes (in part):

Even as we look ahead with hope, we continue to face conflict around the world and deep divisions here in the U.S. I want to acknowledge these challenges, and the pain many continue to feel. I also feel profound gratitude and admiration for the ways in which Dartmouth has come together to face this adversity, demonstrating real leadership that has resonated far beyond the bounds of our campus.

Over and over, you have collectively embraced our mission as a community of scholars and students, and used that shared commitment to put our values into action. Our Jewish and Middle Eastern studies faculty have deservedly received national attention for the way they have brought our community together for what is difficult, and often uncomfortable, dialogue around the war in the Middle East. Harnessing the strengths and core values of Dartmouth—ideological diversity, character, and community—we have been clear that our goal is to center dialogue and debate. In contrast, antisemitism, Islamophobia and any form of hate or threat are at odds with our institutional mission and values and therefore have no place on our campus.

(Emphasis added)

Not bad, if true.

But what caught my eye was this:

And our faculty, students, and staff are working together to bring a diversity of perspectives to campus, including separate appearances later this week by former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney and current U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin.

Some diversity of perspective! It’s the difference between someone who thinks Donald Trump is an existential threat to America and someone who thinks he’s a deadly threat.

It’s true, of course, that Cheney and Raskin differ on some important issues. But to my knowledge, Cheney never talks about any of them. For her, it’s Trump, the existential threat, all the time (as I suppose it should be if the former president is such a huge threat). Maybe a student question will prompt Cheney to talk about something else, but don’t count on it.

Let’s hope that Beilock is poorly informed. Because if this truly is her idea of diversity of perspective, I wonder whether Dartmouth values and promotes it any more effectively than Harvard does.