Commentary: Derek Bok’s Flawed Diagnosis of Harvard’s Ailments

Peter Berkowitz April 14, 2024 1 min read

Peter Berkowitz
RealClear Politics

Excerpt: In “Why Americans Love to Hate Harvard,” published in Harvard Magazine’s March-April 2024 issue, Derek Bok weighs in on the state of higher education at Harvard and other elite colleges and universities and proposes a few reforms.

Bok’s essay suggests that hostility to America’s top universities arises in significant measure from sources external to higher education. While acknowledging that Harvard and many others have created faculties and curricula that are overwhelmingly progressive, his assessment greatly understates the accumulating damage to liberal education deriving from deliberate faculty and administration judgments, decisions, policies, and actions.

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