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American universities are wrapping up their finals weeks and students are returning home for the holidays. Almost all colleges shut down entirely between Christmas and New Year, and few will be as appreciative of that break as university presidents.
University presidencies long have been prestige-laden positions, replete with huge salaries, capable and deferential support staffers and working days filled with speechifying and schmoozing with donors.
Dealing with curricula, tenure applications and complaining professors? That’s the provost’s job. Presidents operate on a higher plane.
In the wake of the disastrous congressional testimony by the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — performances that cost one of them their job and sullied the reputation of the other two — that description of the job looks increasingly outmoded. Presidents have been under fire all over the country with some local-angle journalists even using the Washington, D.C., mess as a hook to probe what is happening, or not happening, at their institution of higher learning.
In the case of Harvard President Claudine Gay, critics overplayed their hands, overstating the reality of her academic work that, while sloppy and reductive, did not amount to actionable plagiarism. By failing to look even one move ahead and anticipating Harvard’s determination not to be seen as beholden to outside, partisan forces, they effectively ensured Gay’s survival. For now, at least.
Chicago Tribune Opinion
We sympathize with the presidents in the klieg lights. Elite campuses are petri dishes for bigger American divisions, filled as they are with young people who have the time and money to stand on ceremony, and those students are not exactly known for nuance or critical thinking these days. Not all the presidential criticism has been deserved.
Then again, these are major leadership positions with highly generous compensation, and scrutiny should be expected and encouraged. That’s why we were appalled to read that, well before Gay’s poor performance on Capitol Hill, Harvard had sicced high-priced lawyers on the New York Post when it dared to ask questions about Gay’s previous academic work. Harvard is one of America’s wealthiest institutions of higher learning and using its resources to bully a newspaper asking legitimate questions is an abuse of its privileged position.
The main issue with the congressional testimony, aside from the presidents failing to make a clear statement in support of their fearful Jewish students, was the Johnny-come-lately aspect of their defense of free speech by critics of Israel. Everyone knows they had not been affording similar, Voltaire-like principles to anyone with whom the progressive orthodoxy disagreed, often citing student safety, of all things.
We suggest these leaders pour themselves a glass of mulled wine as they close up their campuses and resolve in 2024 to reengage with critical thinking, hire more faculty with diverse points of view as well as diverse racial identities and privilege teaching over activism. They should refrain, too, from issuing institutional memos of outrage or support, unless they honestly think they can do so when the issue in play is out of their ideological comfort zones.
This time, an overdue reckoning has come for them.
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