PrintSeptember 16, 2007
How low has academia fallen?
Very low indeed. I used to wonder how German universities, among the most distinguished in the world back then, fell into lockstep behind Hitler. How could the supposedly the best minds allow that?
I wonder no longer. The signs are very discouraging, and it isn't the outlier marginal campuses where the problem is greatest. Not just the University of California and Duke. Harvard, fresh off the disgrace of hounding Lawrence Summers from its presidency, is embracing the madness. Scott Johnson of Powerline writes today:
At Harvard, President Drew Gilpin Faust is proving herself to be immune to concerns about intellectual standards or racial discrimination. Indeed, she seeks "a different Harvard" -- one with so many black professors and staff that it could fill Harvard's stadium.
Read for yourself the sort of faculty enjoying President Faust's embrace, and follow the links provided by Scott.
I devoted more than two decades of my life to a career in academia, the majority of that time at Harvard. I am quite simply nauseated at the level of anti-intellectualism rampant at America's most elite academic institutions. Harvard, with its age, prestige, and $35 billion endowment is leading the academy into a vortex.
The barbarians are not just at the gates or even inside the gates, they are in command.
