Harvard's stand-in president to Harvard community: Let's all just get along

Yesterday, I argued that Claudine Gay-ouster triumphalism is misguided because Gay’s departure from the Harvard president will not prove to be a blow against DEI at that institution. If anything, I suggested, touting her departure as a victory for anti-DEI conservatives might cause Harvard to make sure no such victory occurs.

My take is reinforced, I think, by a memo sent today by Harvard’s stand-in president Alan Garber to “Members of the Harvard Community.” Here is what Garber wrote:

We have been through an extraordinarily painful and disorienting time for Harvard. Since I first arrived here as an undergraduate in 1973, I cannot recall a period of comparable tension on our campus and across our community. That tension has been exacerbated by concerns about how we address and combat antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of bias; safeguard free expression; and foster a climate of mutual understanding. We have been subjected to an unrelenting focus on fault lines that divide us, which has tested the ties that bind us as a community devoted to learning from one another.

President Gay’s resignation last week has added a deep sense of loss. Claudine and I have worked together closely these past eight years. I have come to know and admire her leadership through her service as a divisional dean, dean, and president, and, along with countless others, I had great hopes for her presidency. I share her unshakable confidence in our community and in what we can accomplish when we commit ourselves, above all, to pursuing excellence.

It’s understandable that Garber doesn’t want to criticize Gay. I have no problem with that. But where’s the acknowledgement that something might be amiss at Harvard. So far, Garber seems to be blaming Harvard’s difficulties on “tension” and the “unrelenting focus” of outsiders, not on the way Harvard has handled the tension, and certainly not on how its radical DEI orientation contributed to it.

As this new year begins, I hope that we will all reflect upon the qualities that make this institution so remarkable: our commitment to attracting and supporting faculty, students, and staff of outstanding talent and promise; our determination to lead in educating students and advancing knowledge across an extraordinary array of scholarly disciplines and professional domains; and our aspirations to generate ideas and innovations that can serve the wider society and change the world for the better. It’s crucial that we bridge the fissures that have weakened our sense of community and, through our words and deeds, affirm the immense worth of what we do here, notwithstanding our shortcomings. Doing so will not be easy, especially in the face of persistent scrutiny, but we must rise to the challenge. It will take a willingness to approach each other in a spirit of goodwill, with an eagerness to listen as well as to speak, and with an appreciation of our common humanity when we encounter passionately held but opposing convictions.

“Bridging the fissures that have weakened our sense of community” sounds wonderful. But instead of an agenda for bridging differences (such as the one discussed by Dartmouth’s president) all Garber offers is self-congratulation and encouragement to “approach each other in a spirit of goodwill.” How, though, can there be the kind of unity that produces goodwill when Harvard is committed to the divisiveness of DEI?

Garber continues:

Whatever our individual views on contested issues, whatever our varied experiences and backgrounds, whatever part of Harvard we inhabit, we share an enormous stake in the learning undertaken here, in the ideas nurtured here, and in the discoveries shaped here that improve lives far beyond our campus. Seeking ways to learn from our differences has never mattered more. Rededicating ourselves to free inquiry and expression, in a climate of inclusion and a spirit of mutual respect, has never mattered more. Upholding a paramount commitment to academic excellence has never mattered more. Pursuing the truth has never mattered more.

Finally, a reference to “free inquiry and expression.” But it’s followed immediately by a reference to “inclusion.”

If Garber meant “inclusion” in the old-fashion, non-DEI sense, he wouldn’t have needed to mention it. Free inquiry and expression means inquiry and expression for everyone.

But, as Heather MacDonald has observed, the rhetoric of inclusion is code for DEI and all it entails. One important thing DEI entails is the downgrading of academic excellence in order to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. Another is limitations on expression that makes the beneficiaries of DEI uncomfortable.

If that’s what Garber means by “tension,” he has a point. There’s major tension between DEI on the one hand and both academic excellence and freedom of expression on the other.

How does Harvard intend to resolve that tension? In recent years, Harvard has resolved it one-sidedly, by attacking and even firing professors who depart from woke orthodoxies. Nothing in Garber’s memo offers comfort to those who hope this will change.

Our task is difficult yet essential, and we have much work ahead of us. Although I regret the circumstances that have me writing to you as your interim president, please know that I will serve with a dedication to the Harvard I know and cherish: a university with a boundless ambition to advance knowledge and with the humility to learn from its shortcomings as well as its successes. I’m grateful for your help in our efforts and wish all of you the best for the year ahead.

Clearly, Garber doesn’t want to offend anyone by identifying Harvard’s “shortcomings,” which are vastly different things to different people. But one cannot learn from one’s shortcomings without acknowledging what they are. And one cannot acknowledge what they are without taking a side in the great divide Garber says he wants to bridge.

To me, spouting mush like Garber’s in the context of Harvard’s betrayal of academic integrity and freedom seems like taking a side — the wrong one. Maybe when Harvard selects a new president, it will take the right side, but I wouldn’t count on it.