Contributing opinion writer
Harvey C. Mansfield
Latest Content
The Grade Debate: 11 Affiliates Weigh In
Amid funding freezes and threats from the federal government, a groundbreaking report raised questions about the bedrock of our teaching mission: grades. From faculty who have been ringing the alarm bells for decades to students worried that the cure to grade deflation may be worse than the disease, this package of perspectives from across campus showcases a range of opinions on how Harvard should evaluate students. — Max A. Palys ’26 and Saul I.M. Arnow ’26, Editorial Chairs
The Grade Inflation Report is Long Overdue
Wisdom says that democracy works only by adapting certain inequalities of excellence to qualify its main principle of equality. To expose them, professors have to grade sensibly.
Viewpoint Diversity and the Scientists
Yet, when we turn from science to the humanities we encounter postmodern arguments like Kuhn’s helpless relativism. Far from giving reason why science might be good, the humanities fail to justify themselves. They know they are not science, but then what are they, and what do they know?
Feminism and the Gender-Neutral Society
Feminism being the subject, you are thinking already that I am against women. But I am against feminism because it is against women. It is against them because it cannot define them.
Free Speech Has Become Free Expression. That’s a Problem.
Academic freedom, therefore, acts as a constraint upon free expression. They are not the same. Protest is inappropriate where academic freedom reigns.
Conservative Faculty Need Affirmative Action
Affirmative action for conservatives would achieve what affirmative action was originally meant to do, which was to make Harvard more truly diverse.
Can a Woke Harvard Still Be the Ivory Tower?
What is new to our time is the hostility of woke to normality and the ambition to transform it. No longer will students graduate and hit “reality” in the form of hostile normality. No more apologies for going to Harvard!
To Harvard Students Who Have Never Met a Conservative
Harvard students and faculty should use their vaunted skepticism on themselves and check out the other side — and that starts by taking a look upward.
To the Class of 2023: On Self-Censorship
To express yourself fully means to fashion your own identity. And to do that, the danger of being offended in your identity becomes a vital point: You must be free both to take offense when you are disrespected and to give offense when your own identity demands it.
Letter to the Editor: On the replacement of the House Master title
To aid in the furious thinking going on in the administration for a name to replace "Master" of a House, I would like to propose a College competition to decide a suitable replacement.