Harvard University

How Woke and Whacked-Out Is Harvard? This Woke and Whacked-Out…

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

I’m supposed to turn in my Harvard reunion report on my life since Old Ivy for the school’s “red book.” Last time, I devoted my essay to explaining why my alma mater was an embarrassment. This time, I’m tempted to skip the whole exercise. It’s futile.

Harvard Medical School held an absurd event called “the Pathology of Unruly Bodies.” A panel devoid of doctors or medical experts declared that anti-obesity drugs were part of an imperialistic “indoctrination” of society. Gee, I never thought of it that way! I never thought of it that way because it’s irredeemably stupid.

The panel included Da’Shaun L Harrison, who claims that GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic and Zepbound are weapons of “genocide” against fat people. [See this post from yesterday. “Genocide” no longer means genocide to the Left, so when Israel is accused of genocide, who knows what they mean?] It also includes Ethics Villain Roxane Gay, hilariously the occupant of Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University. She’s also the “artist-in-residence”—whatever that means— at Harvard Medical School and has a column in the New York Times (of course she does!).

Gay (she’s the cousin of disgraced former Harvard University President Claudine Gay, which I did not know when she was in the process of proving what an unforgivable DEI selection she was) has called for the release of Luigi Mangione, the man whjo murdered the CEO of UnitedHealthcare two years ago. That alone should disqualify her from participation in any event that is supposed to enlighten young minds, but Harvard decided she was a font of wisdom.

In the panel discussion, Harrison argued that the companies offering the anti-obesity drugs are, well, let me quote her or him (I can’t figure out which so far, and frankly, I don’t care): “This practice of forcing people into manipulating and changing or shifting how they look is oftentimes about making bodies militarisable. Building up a military to defend an imperialist state…A lot of doctors, medical professionals and folks who collaborate with them — be it through the government or media — are advocating for atrocities that are directly impacting our citizens, but also citizens around the globe. It then becomes about creating this ideal body that you are always being pushed and pulled towards, as a way to represent this patriotism that is intended to indoctrinate one into the military, into the defense of the country.”

Okayyyy..Uh, what color is the sky on your planet, Da’Shaun?

Professor Turley comments, “The suggestion that weight loss drugs serve imperialist, militaristic goals is obviously bonkers. It is the kind of raving you would expect on a subway from someone wearing a handmade cardboard sign and a tin foil hat.”

Not to Harvard’s leaders and administrators, though! Maybe I’ll post this essay in the “red book.”

Oh.. I almost forgot. This is what Roxane Gay looks like…

I wonder why she’s convinced weight loss drugs are part of a right wing plot?

The FIRE’s Ten Worst Colleges For Free Speech, 2018

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (The FIRE) is the heroic non-partisan, non-profit that does a lot of the work the ACLU should be doing, but doesn’t. The list (those with links are the colleges covered in 2017 Ethics Alarms posts):

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N.Y.)

Drexel University (Philadelphia, Pa.)

Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.)

Los Angeles Community College District (Los Angeles, Calif.)

Fordham University (New York, N.Y.)

Evergreen State College (Olympia, Wash.)

Albion College (Albion, Mich.)

Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.)

University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, Calif.)

Texas State University (San Marcos, Texas)

The whole, awful story of each is worth reading, especially in light of yesterday’s “Ethics Quote Of The Week.” FIRE does not rank the unethical colleges, but I’ll say this: Evergreen may be the worst of the worst, but Harvard is the most shameful.

The FIRE is one of the great ethics organizations in the nation, and deserves every citizen’s respect, support, and gratitude.

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 10/19/2017: Gwyneth’s Mom, Harvard’s Airbrush, Salon’s Favorite Conservatives

/ Jack Marshall / 48 Comments

Yes, I KNOW it’s Thursday, but I meant to use this song yesterday, but didn’t, because I thought it was Tuesday…

GOOD MORNING!

1 We have several Ethics Train Wrecks barrelling along. The Harvey Weinstein Express is still picking up expected passengers, like Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. The Executive Committee unanimously voted to award Weinstein the 2014 W.E.B Du Bois medal for contributions to African and African-American culture. In the midst of complaints by the African American community that Hollywood was slighting black artists and themes in its films, Weinstein’s Miramax studio had stood out as a notable exception.

The same professors voted Tuesday night to rescind the honor in the wake of the Weinstein’s (long-known but only recently publicly exposed) sexual predator proclivities, announcing in a statement: “We have voted unanimously to rescind the Du Bois Medal awarded to Mr. Weinstein in 2014. We stand with the women who have courageously come forward to fight for themselves and indeed for all of those who have experienced similar abuse.”

Wrong, and cowardly. What does sexual harassment have to do with African American culture? The mania among progressive missions groups to insist that only those who satisfy all broad progressive agenda mandates are worthy of any honor is why the nation’s continued celebration of Jefferson, Washington and other founders is hanging by a thread. Did Weinstein deserve the award in 2014? Yes, I assume. Has anything changed regarding the producer’s contributions to black culture through his movies? No.

I covered this substantially identical situation here, in 2015. Continue reading →

Ethics Heroes: 28 Harvard Law Professors

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Campus sex is returning to the '50's....the 1850s.

Campus sex is returning to the ’50’s….the 1850s.

In 2011, the Obama Administration threatened universities with a loss of funding if they did not adopt a new “preponderance of the evidence” standard in evaluating alleged student sexual assault and sexual harassment. This was, few doubt, a sop thrown to the combative feminists among the Democratic base, those who detect a culture-wide “war on women” and who seek to cast co-eds as imperiled naifs even as the proclaim themselves the equals of men. Within three years this really bad idea has metastasized into the Campus Sexual Assault Witch Hunt Ethics Train Wreck, which would be getting more media attention but for the fact that the world is falling apart in chunks. Among its weirder effects is the proliferation of new “yes means yes” regulations, effectively taking all spontaneity, romance and fun out of sex, all in the service of dubious and cynically employed campus rape statistics. Take this, for example:

“Consider the sexual consent policy of California’s Claremont McKenna College, shared almost verbatim with other schools such as Occidental College in Los Angeles. Paragraphs long, consisting of multiple sections and subsections, and embedded within an even wordier 44-page document on harassment and sexual misconduct, Claremont’s sexual consent rules resemble nothing so much as a multilawyer-drafted contract for the sale and delivery of widgets, complete with definitions, the obligations of “all” (as opposed to “both”) parties, and the preconditions for default. “Effective consent consists of an affirmative, conscious decision by each participant to engage in mutually agreed upon (and the conditions of) sexual activity,” the authorities declare awkwardly. The policy goes on to elaborate at great length upon each of the “essential elements of Consent”—“Informed and reciprocal,” “Freely and actively given,” “Mutually understandable,” “Not indefinite,” “Not unlimited.” “All parties must demonstrate a clear and mutual understanding of the nature and scope of the act to which they are consenting”—think: signing a mortgage—“and a willingness to do the same thing, at the same time, in the same way,” declare Claremont’s sex bureaucrats.”

Cheers, then, are due to 28 Harvard Law professors, who authored and signed a letter protesting Harvard University’s capitulation to the Obama Administration’s blackmail and urging the University to reject the new standards:

Some highlights: Continue reading →

“Pow Wow Chow” Follow-Up: My Breitbart Interview On Harvard and Professor Plagiarism

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Michael Patrick Healy, an author and conservative activist, interviewed me today regarding what Harvard Law School’s response ought to be if indeed Elizabeth Warren engaged in plagiarism with her contributions, as “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee”, to the cookbook “Pow Wow Chow.”

His article, including the interview, are on the Breitbart Big Government site, here.