Harvard is seen as a leading organization in higher education. They should be taking a stand on this and a host of other issues.
The College Fix reports:
Next Harvard president must stand up for free speech, says student, faculty and alumni petitionThe next Harvard University president must champion free speech for the sake of the university’s integrity and reputation, according to a new petition signed by students, faculty and alumni.There is a culture at Harvard “that is not conducive to free exchange of ideas,” petition co-organizer and university undergraduate Victoria Li told The College Fix by phone on December 4.“Many classes are framed in specific language that discourages open inquiry, which sometimes makes debatable ideas seem undebatable,” she said.Harvard’s Presidential Search Committee must select a candidate who “affirms the importance of free speech for Harvard’s campus climate, academic rigor, and international prestige,” argues the petition, which The Fix reviewed.More than 200 students, 31 alumni and 11 faculty members have signed it so far.Harvey Silverglate, Harvard Board of Overseers candidate, university alumnus and co-founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, called the free speech climate at Harvard “poor.”“There can be no real liberal education without free speech,” so “you can’t say that liberal education is alive [at the university],” he wrote in an email to The College Fix.Harvard professor of government and political philosopher Harvey Mansfield agreed.“Harvard offends against free speech with a woke administration that suffocates opposition, a faculty that refuses to hire conservative professors, and with a student body that silences diverse opinions,” Mansfield, who signed the petition, told The Fix in an email.“Harvard is so far gone that it hates itself for a false ‘legacy of slavery.’ It needs to search and revive its soul, now barely alive,” Mansfield said.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY