I Fought Khurana’s Final Club Sanctions. I Won’t Remember Him Fondly.

It is normal, when a long-serving administrator retires, for mountains of praise to pour forth from those over whom he or she administered. Hence, the coming departure, at the end of this academic year, of Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana has brought forth many encomia. It is the polar opposite of the observation in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that while the evil that men do lives long after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.

But, as legal co-counsel for a group of all-female social organizations in a lawsuit brought against Harvard because of Khurana’s effort to ban single-gender social organizations, I have to admit that I came to see him as overly controlling, especially on the “politically correct” issues of the day. He apparently felt that it was Harvard’s (and his) business to decide how and with whom undergraduates spent their social time. In my view, Khurana is part of Harvard’s old and unwise administrative order, which includes, of course, former President Claudine Gay.

I hope — and suspect — that newly-appointed President Alan M. Garber ’76, and newly-appointed Provost John F. Manning ’82, are wiser and more respectful of the autonomy of the human beings over whom they have authority.

Harvey A. Silverglate is a graduate of Harvard Law School and a co-founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.