In fairness, I never actually applied to Harvard, and had I applied, I wouldn’t have gotten in. But I’ve often had to correct people when they've asked me where I went to school after I told them I went to the University of Hartford.
“Harvard?” they’d ask.
“No. Hart-ford,” I’d say, exaggerating the pronunciation.
In recent years, I’ve often taken my responses to the “Harvard?” question by adding something like, “Heck, no,” or, “You couldn’t pay me to go to Harvard.” Sometimes I’d just act insulted by the accusation or joke that I didn’t think they admitted white people anymore because of its prioritization of diversity over colorblind academic excellence.
Of course, my beef with Harvard is much bigger than the issue of affirmative action.
Despite its reputation for being an excellent institution of higher education, Harvard went woke years ago and barely lives up to its reputation. Earlier this year, I wrote about how Harvard Medical School students are now being offered a course on providing healthcare to LGBTQIA+ infants.
In the course, “Caring for Patients with Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities, and Sex Development,” medical students can expect to gain experience with “patients [who] identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, or asexual,” and the course description promises that clinical exposure and education will "focus on serving gender and sexual minority people across the lifespan, from infants to older adults.”
But, alas, I have other problems with Harvard. In the aftermath of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, Harvard University showed us its true colors. Thirty-four student organizations at Harvard signed a letter blaming Israel for the attack. Clearly, Harvard students have a hard enough time differentiating between good and evil that one can’t help but question what kind of hate is being taught there. Despite the public backlash against Harvard over the student letter, the administration there literally created a task force to support the pro-terrorist students.
Related: It Looks Like Harvard Identifies as a Garbage School Now
After publicly backing the letter from the student organization, Harvard President Claudine Gay eventually publicly denounced anti-Semitism on campus.
“I affirm our commitment to protecting all members of our community from harassment and marginalization, and our commitment to meeting antisemitism head-on, with the determination it demands,” Gay said in a statement. “Antisemitism has no place at Harvard. We are committed to doing the hard work to address this scourge.”
But that gesture only exposed the root of the problem. Over 100 Harvard professors wrote a letter denouncing her condemnation of anti-Semitism on campus, accusing her of succumbing to pressure from donors and alumni.
"There must [...] be room on a university campus for debate about the actions of states, including of the State of Israel,” the letter states. "It cannot be ruled as ipso facto antisemitic to question the actions of this particular ethno-nationalist government any more than it would be ipso facto racist to question the actions of Robert Mugabe's ethno-nationalist government in Zimbabwe."
But this isn’t about legitimate debate over the actions of the Israeli government. This is about the rabid anti-Semitism that has been taking place not only at Harvard but also on college campuses nationwide. Jewish students no longer feel safe. When so many student organizations take the side of Hamas, a terrorist group, I can imagine how unsafe Jewish students feel at Harvard. Anti-Semitism appears to be institutionalized at the school. This is what Harvard has become.
Harvard was once a place people would aspire to go to. Now, it’s a place they should stay away from.
