Rightward, Ho! at the Kennedy School

The winds of conservatism have been blowing strong during the past two years--too strong for most folks aboard the good ship Liberal. Following the captain's orders, the servile minions of the left are struggling to adjust their vessel's sails for an about-face. The crew, upset, but believing that they can no longer stay the course, are hastily climbing the masts and adjusting the rudder to save their ship.

Recent events at the Kennedy School of Government confirm that this once-proud bastion of liberalism is succumbing to the national trend of conservative retrenchment. Almost as if mimicking President Clinton, the training ground for professional bureaucrats and policy junkies has abandoned its liberal foundations in search of a more "inclusive" public persona, or at least one which isn't so unappetizing to the likes of the blubbered blatherer Rush Limbaugh and the prostitute-cum-patriot Oliver North.

The focal point of this change (and the possible impetus for it all) is the return of the New Members of Congress Conference to Harvard after its brief departure in 1994. According to Forum Director Heather Campion, some 35 of 70 Republicans and Democrats who received invites to this year's New Member ho-down have RSVP'd in the affirmative, though she declined to cite party breakdown. Campion and other K-School administrators will point out that Congress endorsed no official initiation program in 1994, but it was widely reported at the time that the new speaker of the house, Newt Gingrich, instructed his newfound acolytes to attend a conference at the ultra-conservative Brookings Institution in Baltimore instead. The dozen or so newly-elected Democrats--too paltry for their gathering to be called a convention--simply went without the usual K-School information session as Harvard decided to cancel an event that had already been criticized as too liberal.

Since 1994, the Kennedy School appears to have made a concerted effort to attract Republican talent to its administrative ranks. Last week's announcement of the appointment of Sheila Burke, Bob Dole's former chief of staff, to the position of executive dean is a notable example of such an ideological transformation. Dean Joseph S. Nye disputes that his hiring reflects a conservative bent. He explains, "The reason I hired Sheila Burke is that she is a first-rate manager with practical experience in government and a graduate of the school to boot." No one would deny that Burke is qualified for the job, but the selection of such a prominent (though moderate) conservative speaks to an effort to counter-balance the left-leaning weight of the academic dean, David Ellwood, a one-time Clinton appointee.

Marvin Kalb, director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, is more forthright in his characterization of the new hiring practices. He writes in an e-mail message, "It is no mystery, nor is it much of a story, that Harvard has often been seen as liberal.... It was very much in the School's interests--and certainly in the students' interests--to understand the new conservative tide in Washington and the country. Government is what the Kennedy School teaches. Therefore, conservative leaders have been invited to the School, and more and more of them have accepted these invitations." Kalb offers as an example his recruitment of retiring Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.)--whose speech at the forum last spring was greeted with student protest in opposition to the senator's crackdown on immigration--to teach a course in the spring.

Just as Simpson's speech was given prominence, so have other conservatives who have appeared at Forum events. When Ralph Reed spoke on Oct. 30, he could not have received a warmer introduction from Mark Merritt, a former Republican National Committee chieftain who runs an Institute of Politics (IOP) study group this semester. This demagogue Reed, whose unctuous invective against "moral decay" was the embodiment of religious hypocrisy, whose appropriation of the Kennedys' rhetoric served only to undermine their name and that of the school, was welcomed by the K-School establishment in order to promote (over C-SPAN) its spanking new conservative image. Forum director Campion comments, "I think what you're seeing is a very real conservative effort on the part of the K-School to present views from all across the political spectrum."

But if you think the conservative winds have quit pushing the K-School further rightward, think again. On Dec. 3, the concept of the panel discussion will gain new meaning. According to a press release from the Coalition on Urban Affairs (CUA), a euphemistically named right-wing advocacy group, a conference on "Free Speech, Sensitivity and True Tolerance" will be convened next Tuesday at the ARCO Forum focused on the critique of Peninsula printed in this space one month ago. Who is to be included on this K-School panel? CUA says it will have John Leo, a reactionary senior columnist for U.S. News and World Report; Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. '53; Jose Padilla '97, an acknowledged member of Peninsula; and Jay Dickerson '98, the president of the Harvard Republican Club, which Campion says is sponsoring the event. Sound like a balanced panel to you?

Campion is quick to reply that the event is confirmed neither with her nor with C-SPAN, despite the privately-issued P.R. statement, which was faxed to The Crimson some two weeks ago. Campion says the IOP's role in the event would be to provide space and "work closely with students" to make sure that the event "is something that works in the forum." I guess right-wing rhetoric works well in the forum. If Harvard Democrats or the Black Students Association wanted to do forum events, Campion notes that the IOP would host those as well. We'll see if the K-School ends up hosting the conservatives-only panel discussion, or if the leadership has second thoughts over Thanksgiving turkeys.

Surely the K-School still retains its liberal credentials. After all, it did bring Hillary Clinton (the It-Takes-A-Village-"socialist") and Jesse Jackson (who's as liberal as you get) to speak this fall. And the K-School did bring back Clinton policy adviser Ellwood and recruit establishment preserver/reformer William Julius Wilson. Maybe the K-School is simply following the winds of national change for fear of irrelevance. Hopefully, that fear will not cause it to lose its ordinary reasonableness for some temporary gain in popularity. The inclusion of perspectives necessary to open debate is one thing. But with the direction the good ship Liberal is now traveling, it very well may veer so far off course that it will not be able to find its proper and good destination.

Joshua A. Kaufman's columns appear on alternate Tuesdays.