This whole issue strikes me as being approached through the wrong lens by most commentators. This is fundamentally a discrimination issue, not a speech issue or a harassment issue.
It isn't Rep. Stefanik's place to tell Harvard "This specific speech doesn't violate your Code of Conduct? Really? Yes it does" -- Harvard's policies are its o…
This whole issue strikes me as being approached through the wrong lens by most commentators. This is fundamentally a discrimination issue, not a speech issue or a harassment issue.
It isn't Rep. Stefanik's place to tell Harvard "This specific speech doesn't violate your Code of Conduct? Really? Yes it does" -- Harvard's policies are its own, and as a private institution it can set those policies however it so chooses! Rather, the issue is that Harvard uses its Code of Conduct as a sword (for preferred voices) and a shield (against disfavored criticism -- Jewish in this instance).
The core issue is that these universities have used their Codes of Conduct in the past on a hair-trigger, with aggressive breadth in interpretation, to advance the universities' preferred groups -- but now the universities have a different, much higher, standard for Jewish students. This is fundamentally discriminatory. I cannot tell if this has been a wake-up call for the universities of how far their policies have taken them, but I can only hope so.
I too hope for a "no more statements" approach to these issues, but the administrators/faculty that have led the universities down this path do not strike me as likely to unwind the machine they've put in place. Society's plummeting trust in universities as an institution feels very apt here -- where I think all of us think the least likely outcome is that the universities admit to hypocritical and bad behavior in the past while committing to do better in the future to fairly, and equally, apply their policies for all people going forward.
I agree with much of your analysis on this being a discrimination issue, which I condemn in the piece, and I also share some of your skepticism about whether university leaders will do better going forward.
But one reason for optimism (which I didn't have the space to get into here) is how donors are now starting to use their clout to address the discrimination problem. Private universities can engage in viewpoint discrimination, but private individuals can withhold their donations when universities do. Greg Lukianoff had a good piece about this:
I mean this genuinely, do you honestly feel like donors have any real influence on institutions with endowments the size of Harvard ($50 bn+), Penn ($21 bn) or MIT ($23.5 bn)? A year with a simple 5% return (below the running rate of such institutions), is in the billions of dollars a year. Even record breaking donations that are $100 million plus that get schools named after the donors suddenly feel insignificant in the face of immense treasure chest endowments.
I suspect donors had significantly more influence over universities 40+ years ago -- not that a donor-influenced policy is necessarily an ideal model to run a university either. But the financialization of these universities and their massive endowments has moved the needle to genuine independence. I doubt anything other than government intervention (or lawsuits, enforced by the judicial system) can impose change on these universities that they do not seek out themselves.
I agree with you that donors don’t have as much influence as they used to. But all the scrambling you’re now seeing among the leaders of elite schools is, I suspect, largely a product of SOME donor clout.
And there’s no way to prove this counterfactual, but I think things would be so much worse without donor pressure. Instead of debating over whether to fly the Israeli flag (which came up at the hearing), they’d be flying the Palestinian flag, no debate necessary.
I generally agree and am hopeful it is true, but here are a few reasons why I think holding out for donors is likely a fools errand. (I was writing this as an "Edit to Add" to my prior post, but saw you've commented -- don't feel any obligation to respond I just wanted to voice my frustration more fully):
(1) for better or worse, US News rankings rewards (or rewarded, maybe it has changed) participation among alumni in terms of donations as a percentage basis. With elite schools dropping out of US News rankings, they're flexing their newly found independence, and no longer need to care whether their decisions will impact the volume of alumni who donate to them as it pertains to rankings;
(2) there's always going to be an undercurrent of people seeking to donate to schools to get their kids (or grandchildren) into these elite institutions due to the immense career and social benefits that come from them. While the wealthiest -- who can make noise and shut off the donation spigot because their offspring/families have generational wealth that is independent from any specific university-affiliated career boost -- can vocally drop out of donating, I suspect a number of upper-middle-class alumni will continue to donate to give their kids whatever edge they can. Until our high-professional careers become de-Ivied (for lack of a better term), I don't know if there's any real movement to be had in this regard. While I am not Jewish, I have many lawyer friends who are, and while they're disappointed with the stance universities have taken -- I haven't really heard anyone say "I'd never let my kid go to Harvard". Rather, they know these institutions have discriminated against Jews in the past, but still value the benefits that come from such schools above and beyond institutional discrimination;
(3) Trustees/Boards are the real points of influence at universities. While historically they were disproportionately composed of the largest and most influential donors, the last 10 years has seen significant diversification of the trustees/boards of every institution. Such diversification is, hopefully, good (ideally it would be viewpoint diversity, but that's another issue), but it has diluted the influence of donors more generally. Further, it is an entrenchment of the independence (from donors, generally) the universities seek (and they now have due to their tremendous endowments). Which I think in an ideal world is maybe/probably good? Universities, pursuing truth and knowledge, should be independent. But I don't think anyone can look back on the last ten years and say the direction universities have taken have pointed them towards anything other than ideological conformity and in-group signaling.
This whole issue strikes me as being approached through the wrong lens by most commentators. This is fundamentally a discrimination issue, not a speech issue or a harassment issue.
It isn't Rep. Stefanik's place to tell Harvard "This specific speech doesn't violate your Code of Conduct? Really? Yes it does" -- Harvard's policies are its own, and as a private institution it can set those policies however it so chooses! Rather, the issue is that Harvard uses its Code of Conduct as a sword (for preferred voices) and a shield (against disfavored criticism -- Jewish in this instance).
The core issue is that these universities have used their Codes of Conduct in the past on a hair-trigger, with aggressive breadth in interpretation, to advance the universities' preferred groups -- but now the universities have a different, much higher, standard for Jewish students. This is fundamentally discriminatory. I cannot tell if this has been a wake-up call for the universities of how far their policies have taken them, but I can only hope so.
I too hope for a "no more statements" approach to these issues, but the administrators/faculty that have led the universities down this path do not strike me as likely to unwind the machine they've put in place. Society's plummeting trust in universities as an institution feels very apt here -- where I think all of us think the least likely outcome is that the universities admit to hypocritical and bad behavior in the past while committing to do better in the future to fairly, and equally, apply their policies for all people going forward.
I agree with much of your analysis on this being a discrimination issue, which I condemn in the piece, and I also share some of your skepticism about whether university leaders will do better going forward.
But one reason for optimism (which I didn't have the space to get into here) is how donors are now starting to use their clout to address the discrimination problem. Private universities can engage in viewpoint discrimination, but private individuals can withhold their donations when universities do. Greg Lukianoff had a good piece about this:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/10/how-donors-can-help-fix-our-broken-campuses/
I mean this genuinely, do you honestly feel like donors have any real influence on institutions with endowments the size of Harvard ($50 bn+), Penn ($21 bn) or MIT ($23.5 bn)? A year with a simple 5% return (below the running rate of such institutions), is in the billions of dollars a year. Even record breaking donations that are $100 million plus that get schools named after the donors suddenly feel insignificant in the face of immense treasure chest endowments.
I suspect donors had significantly more influence over universities 40+ years ago -- not that a donor-influenced policy is necessarily an ideal model to run a university either. But the financialization of these universities and their massive endowments has moved the needle to genuine independence. I doubt anything other than government intervention (or lawsuits, enforced by the judicial system) can impose change on these universities that they do not seek out themselves.
I agree with you that donors don’t have as much influence as they used to. But all the scrambling you’re now seeing among the leaders of elite schools is, I suspect, largely a product of SOME donor clout.
And there’s no way to prove this counterfactual, but I think things would be so much worse without donor pressure. Instead of debating over whether to fly the Israeli flag (which came up at the hearing), they’d be flying the Palestinian flag, no debate necessary.
I generally agree and am hopeful it is true, but here are a few reasons why I think holding out for donors is likely a fools errand. (I was writing this as an "Edit to Add" to my prior post, but saw you've commented -- don't feel any obligation to respond I just wanted to voice my frustration more fully):
(1) for better or worse, US News rankings rewards (or rewarded, maybe it has changed) participation among alumni in terms of donations as a percentage basis. With elite schools dropping out of US News rankings, they're flexing their newly found independence, and no longer need to care whether their decisions will impact the volume of alumni who donate to them as it pertains to rankings;
(2) there's always going to be an undercurrent of people seeking to donate to schools to get their kids (or grandchildren) into these elite institutions due to the immense career and social benefits that come from them. While the wealthiest -- who can make noise and shut off the donation spigot because their offspring/families have generational wealth that is independent from any specific university-affiliated career boost -- can vocally drop out of donating, I suspect a number of upper-middle-class alumni will continue to donate to give their kids whatever edge they can. Until our high-professional careers become de-Ivied (for lack of a better term), I don't know if there's any real movement to be had in this regard. While I am not Jewish, I have many lawyer friends who are, and while they're disappointed with the stance universities have taken -- I haven't really heard anyone say "I'd never let my kid go to Harvard". Rather, they know these institutions have discriminated against Jews in the past, but still value the benefits that come from such schools above and beyond institutional discrimination;
(3) Trustees/Boards are the real points of influence at universities. While historically they were disproportionately composed of the largest and most influential donors, the last 10 years has seen significant diversification of the trustees/boards of every institution. Such diversification is, hopefully, good (ideally it would be viewpoint diversity, but that's another issue), but it has diluted the influence of donors more generally. Further, it is an entrenchment of the independence (from donors, generally) the universities seek (and they now have due to their tremendous endowments). Which I think in an ideal world is maybe/probably good? Universities, pursuing truth and knowledge, should be independent. But I don't think anyone can look back on the last ten years and say the direction universities have taken have pointed them towards anything other than ideological conformity and in-group signaling.