Harvard Planning to Write ‘Puritans’ Out of Its Alma Mater
“To affirm Harvard’s commitment to inclusion”
This is ironic considering the fact that progressives have become the new Puritans.
The New York Times reports:
Harvard Seeks to Write ‘Puritans’ Out of Its Alma Mater
For decades, Harvard students and alumni have sung an alma mater that calls on them to be heralds of light and bearers of love “till the stock of the Puritans die.”
University officials teach the refrain to freshmen on arrival and sing it again when the students graduate years later.
But this week, a university steeped in tradition said the time had come for a change.
To affirm Harvard’s commitment to inclusion in a time when college campuses are routinely finding themselves at the center of national debates on race and identity, university officials said they are seeking suggested rewrites of that disquieting final line. The contest is open only to members of the Harvard community.
The line about Puritans concludes a sentence that is “an exhortation to pursue the truth until a certain endpoint,” said Danielle S. Allen, a professor and political philosopher on the Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging, which launched the competition.
Harvard’s motto is “Veritas,” Latin for “truth,” she noted, adding, “there shouldn’t be any endpoint to the pursuit of truth, nor should we imply that the pursuit of truth is for any particular ethnic group.”
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Comments
Maybe “…’til that great big Endowment runs dry”?
though that doesn’t really make things any better.
Next they’ll be agitating to take the statue of “John Harvard – Founder – 1638” out of Harvard Yard, simply because it isn’t John Harvard, he wasn’t the founder, and the date is wrong. And they should want to be more inclusive of other metals, and not just bronze—which is a mixed-race amalgamation of copper and tin, anyway.
But no need to fret over that “veritas” stuff. The school was established by the legislature of the Massachusetts colony, and intended to train clergymen. Veritas didn’t have anything to do with it.
Inclusion through exclusion. I love it!
Can Harvard renounce Puritanism without renouncing its current incarnation, Liberalism, though?
One cannot expect fools to recognize historical people of courage, moral character, and honor when the fools lack any indication of any of these virtues.