It will be extremely interesting and informative to see what percentage of the Harvard faculty and student body is actually interested in building bridges to create more understanding and respect for voices not aligned with their own. Thanks for including the letter by Garber.
Whenever I see videos like this one, it boggles my mind that anyone can be that ignorant. But, this is America and in America you have the right to be stupid.
Can you look into medical schools and nursing schools. My former nursing school (where I got my undergraduate in nursing is so bad). The accreditation body for nursing undergrad and grad programs changed all their standards in 2021 and basically requires DEI in everything to meet standards. I believe they actually say this is the goal. There is a required undergrad nursing class called “race, power and justice” and the univ of MN.
Great to hear how the work you're doing is having an impact in the courts and on campuses. As many who watched last year's campus riots unfold have witnessed, Harvard was at the top of the list of colleges epitomizing the challenges and problems in higher ed today - and in our culture more broadly. I strongly hope they will learn from the recent turmoil and begin to truly embrace the freedom of speech and expression they've long claimed to espouse, but which have been empty words now for many years. Alumni received an email today from the Alumni Affairs & Development office on behalf of interim President Alan M. Garber. I hope he and others on campus will work hard to make these words a reality, and quickly. I've copied it below for those who may be interested.
Harvard University - Office of the President
Dear Members of the Harvard Community,
I write to announce the selection of four student-led initiatives (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/02/student-led-projects-tackle-campus-divisions/) that will receive support from the President’s Building Bridges Fund to encourage dialogue and deepen understanding across differences on our campus. These projects, from groups with varied memberships and activities, share the goal of bringing people together and building mutual respect. I am eager to see how their work progresses over the spring term. We hope that the Building Bridges projects and other efforts currently under way will foster an environment in which everyone at Harvard can speak and debate freely, take risks for the sake of intellectual growth, and feel that they are valued members of our community, whether their views are popular or not.
If we aspire to change our culture, we will need to sustain activity to foster community at every level of the institution, from supporting creative and intentional efforts on our campus to reiterating our institutional values. Yesterday, in my opening remarks at our annual Forum (https://www.harvard.edu/president/speeches/2025/ag-forum-remarks/), focused this year on cultivating bonds and building bridges, I reaffirmed our longstanding commitment to spurring and speeding excellence by embracing difference in its many forms. Together, we will continue to build a community in which people of all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives come together to learn, grow, and thrive as we embrace the rights and responsibilities that membership in such a community demands.
In recent weeks, some of you have asked me what you can do to support the University at a moment when so much seems uncertain. Encourage one another in your work; celebrate academic excellence; take nothing about our extraordinary institution for granted.
FIRE will be back in court as sure as the sun will rise in the east. DEI is an evangelical cult and confessions of faith are an essential element. The judge in this case is either credulous or disingenuous in believing that California authorities will not compel speech. There is no point in the entire DEI project without it.
What I'd like to see are the names of the people who wrote up and "published" the DEI guidelines in CA. In all situations like this responsibility and accountability should be transparent. They allegedly work for Ca taxpayers in public institutions. We have a right to know who they are otherwise it's just a star chamber.
Some might say that, ironically, we got where we are because of free speech: the woke spread their noxious ideas that led to woke loyalty oaths, etc. and the anti-woke spread ideas designed to stop the spread of the noxious woke ideas. Is free speech its own enemy?
Thanks for bringing light to these issues while acknowledging how censorship happens on all sides!
As someone who has experienced a lot of pushes to self-censor from the radicals on the left, it’s always frustrated me how the media seems to present it as only a right-wing problem.
Still, I don’t want objecting to left-wing censorship to mean I ignore or invalidate the concerns and issues of censorship on the right.
As an author, I now make it my mission to write stories that will break the “rules” on both sides. Maybe it’s a noble effort to keep my narratives original, but it’s also just fun to be mischievous like that.
Good read. I applaud the quest for free speech. I’m not an expert on this subject. Just a guy with ideas. This brings to mind 2 points.
1. When is free speech costly? At what point do we protect people, particularly children and young adults from rhetoric that will certainly harm them and at what point do we hold adults accountable for being in a position of teaching students and using it to promote damaging propaganda to further an ideology-infused academic culture?
2. The two primary differences in attention between the CA issue and the FL issue are that a) MSM still has financial allegiance to the far left. The FL issue was an indictment of DeSantis. Therefore it must be noble. The CA issue was an indictment of Newsome. Therefore it must be preposterous. And b) one is preventing outright lies to be inculcated to students (like “merit is racist) and the other is compelled speech. Precisely the issue that made Jordan Peterson famous.
It will be extremely interesting and informative to see what percentage of the Harvard faculty and student body is actually interested in building bridges to create more understanding and respect for voices not aligned with their own. Thanks for including the letter by Garber.
Whenever I see videos like this one, it boggles my mind that anyone can be that ignorant. But, this is America and in America you have the right to be stupid.
Can you look into medical schools and nursing schools. My former nursing school (where I got my undergraduate in nursing is so bad). The accreditation body for nursing undergrad and grad programs changed all their standards in 2021 and basically requires DEI in everything to meet standards. I believe they actually say this is the goal. There is a required undergrad nursing class called “race, power and justice” and the univ of MN.
And you can report people for micro aggressions at both Duke and Univ of MN on their nursing website
Great to hear how the work you're doing is having an impact in the courts and on campuses. As many who watched last year's campus riots unfold have witnessed, Harvard was at the top of the list of colleges epitomizing the challenges and problems in higher ed today - and in our culture more broadly. I strongly hope they will learn from the recent turmoil and begin to truly embrace the freedom of speech and expression they've long claimed to espouse, but which have been empty words now for many years. Alumni received an email today from the Alumni Affairs & Development office on behalf of interim President Alan M. Garber. I hope he and others on campus will work hard to make these words a reality, and quickly. I've copied it below for those who may be interested.
Harvard University - Office of the President
Dear Members of the Harvard Community,
I write to announce the selection of four student-led initiatives (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/02/student-led-projects-tackle-campus-divisions/) that will receive support from the President’s Building Bridges Fund to encourage dialogue and deepen understanding across differences on our campus. These projects, from groups with varied memberships and activities, share the goal of bringing people together and building mutual respect. I am eager to see how their work progresses over the spring term. We hope that the Building Bridges projects and other efforts currently under way will foster an environment in which everyone at Harvard can speak and debate freely, take risks for the sake of intellectual growth, and feel that they are valued members of our community, whether their views are popular or not.
If we aspire to change our culture, we will need to sustain activity to foster community at every level of the institution, from supporting creative and intentional efforts on our campus to reiterating our institutional values. Yesterday, in my opening remarks at our annual Forum (https://www.harvard.edu/president/speeches/2025/ag-forum-remarks/), focused this year on cultivating bonds and building bridges, I reaffirmed our longstanding commitment to spurring and speeding excellence by embracing difference in its many forms. Together, we will continue to build a community in which people of all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives come together to learn, grow, and thrive as we embrace the rights and responsibilities that membership in such a community demands.
In recent weeks, some of you have asked me what you can do to support the University at a moment when so much seems uncertain. Encourage one another in your work; celebrate academic excellence; take nothing about our extraordinary institution for granted.
Sincerely,
Alan M. Garber
It’s a bit ironic to hear wealthy Stanford students yelling “tax the rich”! Did they ask their parents?
FIRE will be back in court as sure as the sun will rise in the east. DEI is an evangelical cult and confessions of faith are an essential element. The judge in this case is either credulous or disingenuous in believing that California authorities will not compel speech. There is no point in the entire DEI project without it.
Not going away in Massachusetts.🙄
https://www.masslive.com/news/2025/02/gov-healey-to-mass-schools-continue-dei-programs-despite-federal-pressure.html
That's why I support you guys! Thank You!
What I'd like to see are the names of the people who wrote up and "published" the DEI guidelines in CA. In all situations like this responsibility and accountability should be transparent. They allegedly work for Ca taxpayers in public institutions. We have a right to know who they are otherwise it's just a star chamber.
Some might say that, ironically, we got where we are because of free speech: the woke spread their noxious ideas that led to woke loyalty oaths, etc. and the anti-woke spread ideas designed to stop the spread of the noxious woke ideas. Is free speech its own enemy?
Thanks for bringing light to these issues while acknowledging how censorship happens on all sides!
As someone who has experienced a lot of pushes to self-censor from the radicals on the left, it’s always frustrated me how the media seems to present it as only a right-wing problem.
Still, I don’t want objecting to left-wing censorship to mean I ignore or invalidate the concerns and issues of censorship on the right.
As an author, I now make it my mission to write stories that will break the “rules” on both sides. Maybe it’s a noble effort to keep my narratives original, but it’s also just fun to be mischievous like that.
Good read. I applaud the quest for free speech. I’m not an expert on this subject. Just a guy with ideas. This brings to mind 2 points.
1. When is free speech costly? At what point do we protect people, particularly children and young adults from rhetoric that will certainly harm them and at what point do we hold adults accountable for being in a position of teaching students and using it to promote damaging propaganda to further an ideology-infused academic culture?
2. The two primary differences in attention between the CA issue and the FL issue are that a) MSM still has financial allegiance to the far left. The FL issue was an indictment of DeSantis. Therefore it must be noble. The CA issue was an indictment of Newsome. Therefore it must be preposterous. And b) one is preventing outright lies to be inculcated to students (like “merit is racist) and the other is compelled speech. Precisely the issue that made Jordan Peterson famous.
Dictators don't ask for permission.