Commentary: A five-point plan to save Harvard from itself

December 11, 2023 1 min read

Steven Pinker
Boston Globe

Excerpt: For almost four centuries, Harvard University, my employer, has amassed a reputation as one of the country’s most eminent universities. But it has spent the past year divesting itself of tranches of this endowment.

In the wake of this debacle, the natural defense mechanism of a modern university is to expand the category of forbidden speech to include antisemitism (and as night follows day, Islamophobia). Bad idea. For universities to have a leg to stand on when they try to stand on principle, they must embark on a long-term plan to undo the damage they have inflicted on themselves. This requires five commitments.

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