Harvard Can't Embrace the ‘Hillsdale Model'
Even worse were the affirmative responses, such as that of Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan, where protesters violated multiple university rules to establish a 'Wesleyan Liberated Zone,' defaced sidewalks and buildings and issued demands. Mr. Roth announced he wouldn't clear the encampment even while acknowledging it violated the rules. A week later, he wrote that he had received many notes from alumni, parents and others criticizing his failure to enforce the rules, but that 'context matters' and 'cops don't always give people tickets for going a few miles over the speed limit.' 'I admire that they're not entirely taken up with grades or lining up their credentials,' he wrote of the protesters, before entering into an agreement with them, granting various demands.
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USA Today
4 hours ago
- USA Today
Who was David Gergen? What to know about the advisor to four US presidents
David Gergen, a veteran political commentator and White House advisor to four former US presidents, died at a Massachusetts retirement community on July 10. He was 83 years old. Gergen's son, Christopher, confirmed his death to The Washington Post and The New York Times on Friday. He shared that his father died from Lewy body dementia, a brain disorder which, according to the Mayo Clinic, affects thinking, memory and movement. The prominent political insider and Harvard professor regularly served as a senior analyst for CNN, drawing on insights he gained from his experience in the White House under former Republican Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, as well as Democrat Bill Clinton. A North Carolina native, he was married to English family therapist Anne Elizabeth Gergen since 1967. The pair shared two children and five grandchildren, according to Gergen's Harvard professor page. Their son is a North Carolina social entrepreneur and Duke faculty member, while their daughter, Katherine, works as a family doctor at the Boston Medical Center. "We at the Kennedy School count David among our greatest leaders: a man of courage and commitment who inspired generations of students to go out and change the world for the better," said Jeremy Weinstein, dean of the Kennedy School and Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy, in an obituary. A veteran, author and Ivy League grad with 27 honorary degrees Gergen was an honors graduate of both Yale and Harvard Law School, though he went on to receive 27 honorary degrees throughout his career. He is an attorney with the D.C. Bar, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. executive committee for the Trilateral Commission. He is also the author of two books: 2001's "Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership Nixon to Clinton" and 2022's "Hearts Touched with Fire: How Great Leaders Are Made." In "Hearts Touched With Fire," Gergen wrote that Americans were living in an "immense volatility in our national life, when crises are hitting us from all directions," calling for "infusion of strong leaders to help us navigate safely." "America is experiencing one of its worst crises since the beginning of the republic," he wrote. "While the next years are likely to be rough, we can be much more helpful about the long run if we remember who we are, if we take heart from our past, and if we prepare young generations for lives of service and leadership. When did Gergen join Nixon's administration? Gergen's political career began under President Richard Nixon's administration before the Republican's 1974 resignation following speculation he was potentially involved in the Watergate scandal. In his memoir, Gergen wrote, "Before he self-destructed, Nixon was among the best of modern presidents," according to an excerpt quoted by CNN. In the 1996 memoir "Call the Briefing," former White House Secretary Marlin Fitzwater described Gergen as "a political legend, a survivor of the Nixon White House" and "trusted member of the Reagan inner circle." Fitzwater, who would serve as White House press secretary from 1982 to 1992, for Presidents Ronald Reagan and then George H.W. Bush, called Gergen the "spin master" because he had "a special knack for engaging a reporter in discussion, ascertaining the reporter's attitude on an issue, and, in midconversation, turning his explanation to fit the reporter's bias." His White House career didn't end with the Watergate scandal as Gergen later advised GOP presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan and eventually Democrat Bill Clinton. When did Gergen become a journalist? Gergen began his career as a journalist in 1984, first working for MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour on PBS. Later that decade, he served as the editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report and went on to be a public affairs commentator for three decades. Many Americans, however, best recognize him as one of CNN's longtime talking heads providing analysis on all things politics. His work has earned him two Emmy Awards for political analysis and two Peabody Awards for his contributions to election coverage teams. Gergen was also involved in various non-profit boards, including some at Yale and Duke Universities. He also served on the board of the New Profit, the leadership council of New Politics, and as an academic advisor to Leadership Now. In 2017, he co-founded and co-chaired non-profit With Honor, a group that aims to help pass bipartisan legislation and elect principled veterans. What has Gergen said about former presidents? David Gergen on the presidents he served, from his book "Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership Nixon to Clinton," published in 2000: Richard Nixon: "Richard Nixon as the most fascinating man I have met in thirty years of public life. ... There was a side to Nixon, not reflected by Watergate or by the tapes, that to this day has inspired a legion of fine public servants. ... Nixon had it all and kicked it away. He complained later that he had simply made a bad mistake and it was really his enemies who destroyed him. ... He brought himself down." Gerald Ford: "While I was in office, that image of Ford as a bumble, someone who meant well, but, as Lyndon Johnson once said, couldn't walk straight and chew gum at the same time, took deep root in public thinking. ... It was an unfair characterization, but something journalists ... and many others readily popularized, as did Ford's critics on the Democratic side of the aisle. Those of us around him in the government knew that he was more intelligent and more physically graceful than the press said (after all, he had been offered a contract to play professional football), and we struggled to help people see the man we worked for each day." Ronald Reagan: "Reagan wasn't just comfortable in his own skin. He was serene. And he had a clear sense of what he was trying to accomplish. Those were among his greatest strengths as a leader. Nobody had to tell him those things. He knew where he wanted to go and how he might get there. Instead of trying to treat him like a marionette, as we did sometimes, the best thing we could do on staff was to help clear the obstacles from his path." Bill Clinton: "To friend and foe, Bill Clinton is a mass of contradictions. He is one of the smartest men ever elected president and has done some of the dumbest things. He has a deeper knowledge of history than most of his predecessors and has used less of it. He genuinely wanted, as he pledged, to have 'the most ethical administration in history,' and enters history as the first elected president ever impeached. He is attached to his wife and needs her daily affirmation, yet he has wounded her repeatedly." What is Lewy body dementia? Lewy body dementia is a type of progressive dementia and the second most common form of the condition after Alzheimer's Disease, according to Norma Loeb, the founder of the Lewy Body Dementia Resource Center. There are two forms of Lewy body dementia: Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's disease dementia. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke states that those with LBD may live anywhere between two to 20 years from diagnosis to death. Contributing: USA TODAY's Joshua Bote and Jayme Deerwester
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
How conservatives are reacting to news that Harvard could start a conservative think tank
News that Harvard University is considering starting a conservative think tank is being met with skepticism and derision by conservatives who see the idea as a public relations ploy as the school seeks to retain federal funding threatened by the Trump administration. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Harvard leadership had been in touch with potential donors for a center that could be similar to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, home to conservative luminaries like Condoleezza Rice, Niall Ferguson, Thomas Sowell and Victor Davis Hanson. According to the Journal, a Harvard spokesman said the center would be nonpartisan and 'promote and support viewpoint diversity.' The cost of creating the center was estimated at between $500 million and $1 billion. The report comes as Harvard President Alan Garber seeks to stand up to the Trump administration while acknowledging that the nation's oldest university has lacked ideological diversity in the past and is weighing how to best correct that. A Harvard task force said in a report issued in 2018 that the school needed to make changes to be more inclusive with regard to religious and political beliefs. Danielle Allen, co-chair of that task force, later wrote for The Washington Post that those aspects of the report had been largely overlooked, and that 'We have been focused so much on academic freedom and free speech that we have neglected to set standards for a culture of mutual respect.' The Trump administration wants Harvard to have more conservatives on its campus, both faculty and students. It has frozen funding, threatened the school's tax-exempt status and accreditation, and wants to stop international students from enrolling. Harvard sued the administration in April, claiming its constitutional rights were being violated. 'No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue," Garber has said. In recent weeks, Trump has said that a deal with Harvard was imminent, but nothing has emerged, and someone 'familiar with the administration's views' told the Journal that the creation of a conservative thinktank would be seen as 'window-dressing' and not satisfy Trump's concerns. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Tuesday that a deal is 'getting close' — as is the court hearing, which is scheduled for July 21. But the Journal, citing unnamed sources, said that negotiations were hindered by 'repeated snags.' 'Decision-making around admissions and faculty have been points of tension, with Harvard resistant to ceding authority on which types of students it admits, the faculty it hires and what professors teach, according to people briefed on the discussions.' University of Pennsylvania professor Jennifer M. Morton, writing for The New York Times, argued that seeking out professors and students with conservative views would backfire, saying they would be less likely to engage in open-minded intellectual pursuit. 'Students admitted to help restore ideological balance would likely feel a responsibility to defend certain views, regardless of the force of opposing arguments they might encounter,' Morton wrote. For professors, she added, 'the pressure to maintain those views would be even greater' because 'your salary, health insurance and career prospects would all depend upon the inflexibility of your ideology.' Responding to Morton's essay on social media, Princeton professor Robert P. George said that a course correction wouldn't require hiring professors because they are conservatives, but simply acknowledging and ending bias against conservatives in the hiring process. 'I don't see how any contemporary academic can, with a straight face, deny that these two species of bias are largely responsible for the stunning — nearly unbelievable — ideological imbalances on college and university campuses," George wrote. An oft-cited poll by the student-run Harvard Crimson found that only about 3% of faculty considered themselves conservative or very conservative while about 77% said they were liberal or very liberal. On 'The Big Money Show on Fox,' Brian Brenberg, a Harvard alumnus, called the idea of a conservative think tank a bone thrown to conservatives. 'When you need something like this, what it tells you is the problem people have accused you of is true. You should never need a center like this, because the definition of scholarship is looking at issues from every single side.' On X, Matthew E. Kahn, an economics professor at the University of California and a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution, called the idea 'promising' but said the Harvard Kennedy School should have done this decades ago. And Hoover's Niall Ferguson said that such a venture 'would have no credibility whatsoever' because of the circumstances under which it was created.
Politico
6 hours ago
- Politico
State official defends canceling visas of pro-Palestinian academics
Another former Columbia student, Mohsen Mahdawi, was 'involved in leadership of disruptive protests at Columbia University that included antisemitic conduct and calling for the destruction of Israel,' Armstrong said. He said Rubio also determined that 'Mr. Mahdawi's activities undermined the peace process in the Middle East including coming to a peaceful resolution of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.' Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk had her visa revoked as a result of 'her antisemitic activities in the U.S.' and for 'creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization,' Armstrong said, adding, 'I believe it was Hamas. It might have been Hezbollah.' Armstrong said Ozturk's visa was designated for 'silent revocation,' meaning it was canceled without notice to her, likely to avoid tipping her off that Homeland Security was seeking to detain her. All the academics Armstrong mentioned have denied fostering antisemitism and advocating for Hamas. Federal judges have either ordered their release or blocked their detention, citing indications that their arrests may have violated their First Amendment rights. While Rubio spoke earlier this year about revoking about 300 visas, Armstrong said the number of 'student protester' visas he was involved in canceling was much smaller, in the range of 15 to 20. The lawsuit before Young, a Reagan appointee, was filed in March by the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association. It claims that the 'ideological deportation' policy runs afoul of the First Amendment rights of the academics targeted for expulsion from the U.S. It also alleges that the policy is chilling the speech and travel of other academics in the U.S. who are not American citizens and is curtailing the ability of American students and faculty to hear the views of the foreign academics. As the trial entered its fifth day Friday, jockeying continued over Young's handling of records DOJ provided to the judge to review privately. DOJ lawyers say the records, which outline the administration's research on targets of potential deportation efforts, are legally privileged as sensitive law enforcement information and internal government deliberations. But Young indicated earlier this week that he believes the government waived those privileges by sending him the documents to examine. The Justice Department filed an unusual appeal Thursday to prevent Young from disclosing any more of the documents to lawyers for the academic groups suing. A panel of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay Friday blocking the judge from giving the plaintiffs any additional government documents until the privilege claim is hashed out. Young read the order aloud in court Friday soon after it was issued. 'I've got to reflect on what it reaches,' the judge said, shortly before ending the trial for the day. The trial is scheduled to continue through next week.
