A history professor who has taught at Harvard for 40 years is publicly calling out the Ivy League school over race-based hiring and admissions policies, a “shocking indifference” to antisemitism, and for its eroding commitment to teaching students about Western history.
James Hankins wrote in a Compact Magazine essay titled “Why I’m Leaving Harvard” that his decision was largely influenced by the school’s abandonment of merit in favor of diversity quotas, which he said entirely changed “the way we conducted our affairs,” leaving extraordinary candidates behind if they did not have Harvard’s desired skin color or gender.
In 2020, Hankins said, “the university had collectively taken a knee during the Summer of Floyd.”
“This turned out not to be empty virtue-signaling, as I expected, but had serious consequences for the way we conducted our affairs,” he wrote. “In reviewing graduate student applicants in the fall of 2020 I came across an outstanding prospect who was a perfect fit for our program. In past years this candidate would have risen immediately to the top of the applicant pool. In 2021, however, I was told informally by a member of the admissions committee that ‘that’ (meaning admitting a white male) was ‘not happening this year.’”
Hankins said such treatment was not confined to Harvard. After making inquiries with colleagues, he determined that the same “unspoken protocol” was being followed all across the nation.