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Michael Segal's avatar

The antisemitism report is important, but as Rabbi David Wolpe (https://x.com/RabbiWolpe/status/1732847413214208141) and I (https://segal.org/gaza/woke/) have suggested, antisemitism is just one part of the wider problem of intersectionality and the best approach is to widen the focus to the larger issue.

Ira Stoll was been very helpful in distilling for us important parts of the 311 page antisemitism report, but one should not lose sight of the wider problem. The federal government understands this, and most of the demands in its reasonable letter, the 3 April version, focus on the wider issue of intersectionality (https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25879226/april-3-harvard-preconditions-letter.pdf).

On the wider issue of intersectionality, the Harvard Salient ran a jaw-dropping account from a Harvard Kennedy School of Government student (https://www.harvardsalient.com/p/class-sffa-and-ideological-diversity). It is well worth reading and is only a few pages. Some key quotes:

"During my second required racism course at the Harvard Kennedy School, the instructor, a key leader during the Ferguson unrest, boasted that, by the time he departed from the city, only the church and the McDonald’s remained standing. Taken aback, I asked whether he thought he had left the city of Ferguson better than he had found it. He did not answer. Instead, I was summoned to a Dean’s office several days later, where I was berated for an hour and a half by the instructor and the Dean. It was made clear that my uncomfortable questions were not welcome at the Kennedy School. This was just one of many overt attempts at ideological intimidation and exclusion that I experienced as one of the Kennedy School’s few conservative students. I do not bring up these issues merely to air my gripes or to elicit sympathy. I do so out of concern for my classmates and for the defenseless 18-year-old children arriving at Harvard, away from home for the first time, guilty only of thinking the wrong things, and against whom these tactics are certainly also used. It is long past time for Harvard to acknowledge that its hostile environment toward intellectual inquiry is damaging to its students, risks further diminishing Harvard’s credibility, and undermines public trust in higher education’s commitment to truth-seeking. Conservatives may be the target of Harvard’s ideological suppression, but, perhaps counterintuitively, it is the liberals who seem to suffer most. During my first year at the Harvard Kennedy School, I have met American progressives who have never had their beliefs challenged–certainly not at the Kennedy School–and thus never learned to defend them. They leave the University completely blind to the concerns of “average Americans” on the right and the left, making Harvard progressives ill-prepared to serve as leaders."

"Currently, the elite have numerous ways to game the admissions process. Everyone else must make efforts to demonstrate their ideological submission to the admissions committees. Essays, in particular, are used by admissions officers as a means to filter applicants on the basis of their capacity to disrupt the prevailing power structure. Graduate school admissions consultants, typically experienced admissions officers, advise applicants with conservative indicators in their background to scrub or countersignal any hint that they might have voted for the “wrong” person. For example, I was cautioned that if I referred to my “wife” instead of my “partner” in my applications, they would be thrown in the trash. Consciously or not, these committees prefer not to grant conferral on anyone who might use their credentials against the prevailing orthodoxy. Ultimately, these litmus tests distort what elite institutions should be selecting for: merit."

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