Strategy Seen in Romney's Attacks

The Massachusetts governor hasn’t been too kind to Harvard lately.

On Thursday, Aug. 31, Gov. W. Mitt Romney took his latest jab at Harvard’s stem cells program, calling it “Orwellian in scope” and akin to the movie “The Matrix.”

The following Tuesday, Romney kicked off a high-profile offensive against the University’s invitation of Mohammad Khatami to speak on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary. He denied state security for Iran’s former leader and called the invitation “a disgrace to the memory of all Americans who have lost their lives at the hands of extremists.”

The late-summer attacks by the Harvard Business School graduate touched off a new round of speculation that Romney was burnishing his conservative credentials ahead of a possible run for president in 2008. But they also underscored what has long been a marquee role for Harvard on the national scene—a premier punching bag for politicians of all persuasions.

As Interim University President Derek C. Bok put it in an e-mail, “Whether it is authors trying to sell books or motion pictures trying to attract audiences or politicians trying to make a point that commands attention, Harvard is a useful tool.”

Romney got six minutes with John Gibson on Fox News after announcing he would ban the use of state resources to protect Khatami on his visit to Boston. “A terrorist is a terrorist,” Romney sternly told Gibson.

“Of course we believe in free speech, but free speech is not welcoming a person to your campus, providing escorts to them, and particularly doing so on the anniversary of the most tragic terrorist event in the history of our nation.”

Romney’s Fox appearance came less than a week after he ripped into the stem cell research being conducted at Harvard, saying he opposes experiments in which scientists create human embryos for the sole purpose of using those embryos for research.

“I believe it crosses a very bright line to take sperm and eggs in the laboratory and start creating human life...It is Orwellian in scope,” he said in remarks at Lesley University, a block north of the Science Center, according to The Associated Press. “In laboratories, you could have trays of new embryos being created. It’s almost like the movie, ‘The Matrix.’”

Romney’s press office did not return repeated calls and e-mails requesting comment.

Brian McGrory, a Boston Globe columnist who supported Romney’s run for governor but often criticizes him in print, says Romney is trying to shed the liberalism and elitism tied to his state and alma mater as he eyes the presidency.

“He’s the governor of a liberal state, so he has to go to pains to kind of separate himself from that state,” McGrory said in an interview. “Now what he seems to be doing is throwing Harvard into the mix and making Harvard the object of some of his criticism, so he will never be considered a Harvard elitist.”

Harvard’s notoriety as a liberal bastion was cemented by the 1950s, when Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy and other conservatives took to calling the University “the Kremlin on the Charles.” That reputation was further reinforced this year and last by the controversies surrounding University President Lawrence H. Summers, whose resignation last spring was often portrayed in the national media as forced by liberal professors obsessed with political correctness. (Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host, dubbed the professors “feminazis.”)

Liberals have taken Harvard to task, too, notably during the “living-wage” campaign in 2001. Democrats with national clout, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, supported the students who staged a three-week sit-in inside the University president’s office in Massachusetts Hall and cast Harvard as an epitome of capitalism’s social ills.

Paul S. Grogan, who served as Harvard’s vice president for public affairs during the sit-in, cited the event to argue that politicians of all ideological stripes have singled out Harvard in railing against socialism, capitalism, and everything in between.

“Beating up Harvard is just about the safest thing you could do because there are so many people out there who envy the University or hate the University or hate what they think it stands for,” Grogan said in an interview. “It’s just a permanent liability that Harvard has in the public realm.”

But Bok said he isn’t irked by the frequent attacks on Harvard. In an e-mail to The Crimson, Bok recalled a recent newsmagazine cover story that tried to debunk the Ivy League’s mystique:

“Indeed, I don’t worry at all when a TIME cover is entitled ‘Who Needs Harvard?’ I would worry more when TIME covers begin to say, ‘Who Needs (some other college)?’”

—Daniel J.T. Schuker contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Anton S. Troianovski can be reached at atroian@fas.harvard.edu.