Harvard's Guilt

Harvard is spending $50 million bucks to make its faculty more diverse.

Sigh.

Why is it that my alma mater just doesn't fire everyone who isn't on a diversity list to really stand head and shoulders above other universities in the diversity rankings? I know that I am being absurd, but the fact that the Big H feels compelled to spend $50 million dollars to hire people based on their secondary characteristics of being bothers me.

The reports paint a picture of a campus where women in science feel a lack of respect, if not outright hostility. "In some departments, women graduate students and postdoctoral fellows report hearing disrespectful criticisms of their abilities from male colleagues and a lack of a supportive environment," one report said.

At Harvard? C'mon. As a paractical matter, a more PC school is hard to imagine

Among the initiatives cited with approval by professors were recommendations for helping female and minority faculty members with their professional and personal lives, including giving financial aid for research and day care and helping the spouses of professors being recruited by Harvard to find jobs.

Wouldn't current professors be ticked off that they are left out of this feel-good festival of cash for the university's guilt? To be fair, though, the concrete details sound less ominous than the univeristy's conceptual commitment to discriminate against you if you are male.

Remember that Harvard is not saying that they will choose the female or minority candidate, all things being otherwise equal. No, the university is maintaining upfront that the intial screen will be for your estrogen or melatonin count.

Fair Harvard? I think not.