I understand that many of these initiatives will appear controversial. This is more a reflection of the sorry state of our campuses today than it is of the radical nature of my proposals. If the faculty wants to fight me, they will have to do so openly and on the merits. Since I’ve been given the awesome responsibility of leading one of the nation’s premier educational institutions, I plan to do so with a transparent agenda where I will either be supported or defeated on the merits. This is a national, not a local, battle. My tenure and success as this university’s president should not turn on whether my expressing a challenging point of view causes a tenured scientist to call for her smelling salts — which went out of fashion with the arrival of Darwin.
Harvey Silverglate, a frequent contributor to "Freedom Watch", is co-author of The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses and co-founder of The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
___
On the Web:
Harvard University: http://www.harvard.edu/
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE): http://www.thefire.org/
E-mail the author:
Harvey Silverglate: has@harveysilverglate.com
Related:
Why the Imus cave-in is bad for free speech, radio, and the whole society, Free speech again quashed at Harvard, Parody flunks out, More 
- Why the Imus cave-in is bad for free speech, radio, and the whole society
I was never a fan of Don Imus.
- Free speech again quashed at Harvard
It should come as no surprise to readers of “Freedom Watch” that yet another instance of political, intellectual, and academic censorship has sprung up at Harvard, the self-touted pinnacle of higher education.
- Parody flunks out
Artist Barry Blitt’s brilliant illustration — which sought to satirize the naysayers who portray Obama as a flag-burning, unpatriotic Muslim and his wife as a black-power radical — cut to the core of today’s political paradox.
- Alumnus interruptus
Rather than take pride in the bi-monthly’s stellar 108-year-old reputation, university administrators effectively declared war on Harvard magazine earlier this year when they brought out an in-house competitor.
- Whitewash
“Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture in Classical Antiquity” presents striking evidence that the white marbles were once painted in bold Technicolor.
- Injustice department
Thank you Harvey Silverglate for shining a light on our criminal-injustice system with your new book Three Felonies a Day. And thank you Peter Kadzis for a great interview.
- Freedom of screech
While I applaud your honesty, I cannot agree with your decision to not publish the Danish cartoons (“ World of Pain ,” February 10).
- Will Harvard drop acid again?
In a moment of delightful whimsy in the annals of drug history, Albert Hofmann, after purposely ingesting LSD for the first time, rode his bicycle home and experienced all manner of beatific and hellish visions.
- Making their mark
Universities need their ivy-covered red-brick towers and classical stone porticoes to remind students of their roots in the past.
- The who behind What
Listen to a discussion with Dave Eggers, Samantha Power, and Valentino Achak Deng, recorded at Harvard's Memorial Hall on February 26, 2007
- Dated advice
To boink a lot or not to boink a lot?
- Less
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News Features
, Education, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, More
, Education, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Social Issues, Higher Education, Racism and Bigotry, Harvard Law School, Colleges and Universities, Cornel West, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Less
