If you are the sort to read comments before clicking, this is Steven Pinker's long essay on Trump's recent "assault" on Harvard. Pinker is a professor there who has been quite critical of Harvard's previous policies on free speech. In this essay, he concludes that while there are things about Harvard that need to be fixed, the administration's approach throws the baby out with the bathwater:
Harvard, as I am among the first to point out, has serious ailments. The sense that something is not well with the university is widespread, and it’s led to sympathy, even schadenfreude, with Mr. Trump’s all-out assault. But Harvard is an intricate system that developed over centuries and constantly has to grapple with competing and unexpected challenges. The appropriate treatment (as with other imperfect institutions) is to diagnose which parts need which remedies, not to cut its carotid and watch it bleed out.
It's not going to please the partisans on either side, but if you are looking for looking for a balanced take on the issue, it's a fine essay from an insider. And while you can certainly disagree with it, unlike a lot of the coverage elsewhere, this seems mostly fact-based and accurate.
https://archive.is/3NdiV
If you are the sort to read comments before clicking, this is Steven Pinker's long essay on Trump's recent "assault" on Harvard. Pinker is a professor there who has been quite critical of Harvard's previous policies on free speech. In this essay, he concludes that while there are things about Harvard that need to be fixed, the administration's approach throws the baby out with the bathwater:
Harvard, as I am among the first to point out, has serious ailments. The sense that something is not well with the university is widespread, and it’s led to sympathy, even schadenfreude, with Mr. Trump’s all-out assault. But Harvard is an intricate system that developed over centuries and constantly has to grapple with competing and unexpected challenges. The appropriate treatment (as with other imperfect institutions) is to diagnose which parts need which remedies, not to cut its carotid and watch it bleed out.
It's not going to please the partisans on either side, but if you are looking for looking for a balanced take on the issue, it's a fine essay from an insider. And while you can certainly disagree with it, unlike a lot of the coverage elsewhere, this seems mostly fact-based and accurate.