Harvard University, forever at the center of controversy over its official positions on matters cultural and political, has made a big change. The university released a report saying it will no longer…
"…issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university's core function."
Very very wise — we all learn when we're wee lads and lasses that when you're in a hole, stop digging. It's about time the geniuses at Harvard figured that out.
Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic looks at the history of universities making a conscious choice to stay out of the fray:
Institutional neutrality is most closely associated with the University of Chicago, where the Kalven report was adopted in 1967. It notes that "the instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student," not the head administrator or any entity that purports to express any collective view. "The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic," the report states.
This makes unbelievably good sense to me. I hope other colleges follow.
Previously:
• A book bound with human skin from dead woman's corpse finally removed from Harvard library
