If this is genuine, it’s a great thing. Increasing viewpoint diversity would solve many problems in higher education.
The Harvard Crimson reports:
Harvard Asks Donors to Endow $10 Million Professorships for ‘Viewpoint Diversity’ Initiativearvard is quietly asking donors for $10 million gifts to establish new endowed professorships in a sweeping bid to reshape its faculty under the banner of “viewpoint diversity,” according to two people familiar with the initiative.The campaign, driven by Harvard’s top brass, aims to raise several hundred million dollars to support a new cohort of professors. If successful, the funding could bring dozens of faculty members to campus and drastically shift Harvard’s academic makeup.University officials have pitched the effort to major donors — conservative and liberal alike — as a way to broaden ideological representation across Harvard, two people said. But the fundraising target has repeatedly shifted after pushback from donors who viewed the scale as too ambitious, one person said.Harvard Provost John F. Manning ’82 — the University’s second-highest administrator and a prominent conservative legal scholar — has led the effort, according to two people. Still, Harvard has carefully framed the project as a general push for “viewpoint diversity,” rather than a politically aligned initiative.Under a model being proposed, new hires would not be housed in a standalone institute. Instead, they would be appointed at the University level and embedded across schools and departments, per two people.Manning began privately testing the idea as early as last summer. At a Boston alumni gathering, he told attendees the University hoped to recruit between 20 and 30 faculty connected to the initiative, according to another person familiar.Since then, Harvard officials have continued to court potential donors through private meetings and dinners nationwide. Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 traveled to Los Angeles in mid-January to meet with top-dollar donors.A University spokesperson wrote in a statement that Manning and Garber were in “ongoing conversations with a variety of members of the University community about how best to advance” viewpoint diversity on Harvard’s campus.“Potential approaches continue to evolve through these discussions,” the spokesperson added.
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