New Accusations of Communism at Harvard

The phrase "Kremlin on the Charles" may not be as outdated as you think.

According to Republican Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, Harvard Law School was more Red than Crimson as recently as 1995, when he graduated.

A spokeswoman for Cruz said that the Senator still stands behind comments he made in at a political rally on July 4, 2010, in which he accused the Harvard Law School faculty of having a stark communist bent. (These comments were recently brought to the fore by New Yorker writer Jane Mayer in the wake of what she called Senator Cruz's "prosecutorial style" of questioning Chuck Hagel, President Obama's nominee for Secretary of Defense.)

Cruz's spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, defended the senator's comments by telling The Blaze that, indeed, "the Harvard Law School faculty included numerous self-described proponents of 'critical legal studies'—a school of thought explicitly derived from Marxism—and they far outnumbered Republicans."

In his 2010 speech, Cruz said that President Barack Obama "would have made a perfect president of Harvard Law School" after he attacked Obama as "the most radical" President "ever to occupy the Oval Office."

Cruz also said that "there were twelve [Communists] who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government."

Robb London, director of communications for the Law School, told the New Yorker, "We are puzzled by the Senator's assertions, as we are unaware of any basis for them."

This is certainly not the first time since the days of McCarthyism that Harvard has been accused of promoting communism and/or the overthrow of the United States as we know it. Last fall, Bloomberg News published an article that described Harvard as a training grounds for the world's most prominent Communist leaders.

It's unclear where Harvard stands on communism these days—after all, Cruz was here in the mid-90s, and the Bloomberg-exposed trainees have come and gone. But while we're not sure exactly what goes on north of Harvard Yard (or at the Kennedy School, for that matter) it does seem safe to say that things are fine for now. Although, if Barack Obama wanted to come back to campus, that could be cool. Obama for Board of Overseers in 2016? Let the accusations of a communist-run Harvard begin (again).