Always at Odds

To not be liberal at Harvard is to be unacceptable. In your classrooms, in your conversations, you are intellectually illegitimate, your contributions having little value compared to your progressive peers. It’s easy to feel like you don’t belong anywhere when your thoughts don’t belong anywhere. And yet, to my non-liberal peers, and to all the future students of Harvard, I find myself sharing a hopeful message: If you choose to share your non-mainstream views, you will be forced into the greatest education of your life.

There are, regrettably, problematic institutional and cultural issues at Harvard regarding intellectual diversity. The growing culture of self-censorship is being pushed by an unintelligible and untenable “woke” standard. Students and faculty filter everything they say. We are becoming intellectually homogeneous, despite important and necessary strides in socio-economic and racial diversity. Harvard’s pool of thought is shrinking, and thus, its quest towards Veritas is impaired, hindered by the self-indulgence of the ideological mainstream.

Through this column, I have articulated the culmination of many issues I have witnessed at Harvard. Along the way, my writing has been propelled by the frustration I had about Harvard’s trajectory. Was I the only one feeling this way? Much of my frustration flowed from a place of hopelessness for an academic institution I truly love and respect. At the same time, I feared the high social cost of saying something unpopular or of being misconstrued.

Harvard University, one of the foremost academic institutions in the world, where only 3 percent of the faculty is conservative.

If academia is the collaborative pursuit of truth that relies on a diverse set of views, then ideological homogeneity of any kind is poison for a healthy academic community — not to mention detrimental to free speech.

It’s not shocking that I, a right-of-center student on campus, would be worried about freedom of speech given that I am in the ideological minority. Yet, embedded in my conservative leanings is the belief that private institutions, like Harvard, can technically do whatever they want. While I think this dire ideological imbalance among the Faculty of Arts and Sciences is detrimental to the quality of education, I will not protest if Harvard, as a private entity, wants it to stay this way. However, the real issue is that Harvard is at odds with the very free speech principles that it has defined for itself, and is doing little to address these infractions.

Harvard, an international hub for intellectual debate … where no one disagrees.

This is the Harvard I have come to know, especially in the classroom. But, apparently, it wasn’t always this way.

A professor of mine recently remarked about how no one argues in section anymore, and asked us why we were so “well-behaved.” During her time at the College in the ’70s, arguing was the norm, she shared.

It’s hard to be patriotic at Harvard.

Socially, it’s the kind of pressure that would make you shy away from throwing a U.S.A.-themed party or posting a purely celebratory post on the Fourth of July or Memorial Day. It’s the fear that there will be backlash, the fear of being asked, “How could you celebrate such a flawed country?”

Academically, it’s the kind of pressure that makes you couch any kind of praise of the U.S. with critique. The formula is as follows: “So yeah, the U.S. has provided the most extensive source of humanitarian aid in the history of the world … but it’s a horribly imperialist enterprise.” Swap imperialist with racist, sexist, homophobic, undemocratic, and hateful at your leisure.

The insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 has left Americans looking back on the collapse of a presidency and the collateral damage of divisive rhetoric. President Donald Trump’s unwillingness to concede the election and his inflammatory language enabled the loss of five lives and the desecration of a sacred symbol of democracy. As a conservative, I join in many Americans’ — including Democrats’ — outrage at this political violence and disrespect for constitutional processes.

As the dust settles, especially after a chaotic impeachment period, students are left thinking about who is responsible for the insurrection. Trump and the rioters themselves are the most immediately culpable, but how broadly does the blame spread? Is it all Trump voters? All Republicans? All non-liberals even?

At a place like Harvard, where many affiliates are connected to the Trump administration, it’s crucial that we grapple with this question. The problem, however, occurs when the finger pointing goes too far: Blame becomes ambiguous, reconciliation impossible.

There’s a folder in my Google Drive for unpublished, unpitched articles intended for The Crimson. Mostly political commentaries, each piece usually calls for more ideological inclusion or debunks another stereotype about Harvard conservatives. In the end, though, I never hit send; I enumerate excuses. It needs more edits. Fewer words. I’m too busy.

But I’ve been fooling myself. It’s fear, not a lack of refinement, that characterizes this unpublished folder.

One of these pieces in particular forced me to confront the reality of my fear. It was a fiery dissent to The Crimson’s staff editorial, “Politics is Personal — Expect It” from December of 2020. For me, one of the more shocking claims made by The Editorial Board was that conservatives asking for ideological representation do not “by virtue of their ideologies, deserve the same protections or support … minorities need.” Their desire for as much would be “misleading and manipulative.”