Dishonest Discourse

Most of what I’ve learned at Harvard this spring will have dulled in my mind come fall, but there is one lesson I’m certain will not: The political correctness wars are alive and well here, and there is little sign of letting up. More unfortunate still: The side of intellectual honesty appears to be losing.

I was particularly struck by this last week, when an incident in the Quad sparked lively discussion on campus. According to reports, the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) responded to complaints of commotion on the Quad’s public lawn during the "ABHW-BMF Challenge," a gathering put on by the Black Men’s Forum (BMF) and the Association of Black Harvard Women (ABHW). HUPD arrived, questioning the students’ presence on the lawn. Some present were asked to show IDs to verify that they were Harvard students. Officers then asked the students to "keep the noise down" and left the scene. Since then, many have called the incident a racist act on the part of the complaining Quad residents.

It’s hard to say whether or not the situation at the Quad was mishandled. The students were not asked to leave the grounds. The fact that a call was made is not surprising—typically reasonable Harvard students transform into prima donnas during exam time. That some students were asked to show IDs rubs some people the wrong way because of skin color—the claim being that they were scrutinized based on being black in a way that white students would not be. On the other hand, if a group of noisy white students were asked to show their IDs, no one would think anything of it.

To jump to a conclusion of racism is hasty. Bryan C. Barnhill ’08, President of BMF, wrote a widely forwarded email in which he characterized students who had complained about the noise as having dispositions "motivated by racist attitudes." This assertion is troubling. Just as it would be inappropriate to dismiss the idea that strands of racism could exist at Harvard, it is equally offensive to presume that what happened at the Quad indicates maliciousness toward black students.

The burden of proof is skewed. Accusations of racism are totally kosher here, yet to raise a question about the nature of the incident is to open oneself up to accusations of being a racist. Worse still, administrators whose job it is to promote campus dialogue are suppressing open discussion by rushing to the same conclusions. S. Allen Counter, longtime director of the Harvard Foundation, compared the incident to Apartheid South Africa. Harvard, according to Counter, is "clearly a racist community, in which police are allowed to use South African apartheid techniques to harass our students." Perhaps Counter needs a history refresher: Apartheid refers to the horrendous system of racial segregation in which black South Africans were denied any social influence and forced to live in inadequate housing with inferior access to education and medicine. I fail to see the parallel here.

It is also unclear what exactly Counter’s organization does. The Harvard Foundation’s supposed commitment to promoting intercultural and racial understanding did not stop it from pulling sponsorship of a 2006 panel featuring Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch parliamentarian and human rights activist whose 2004 film, "Submission," detailing mistreatment of Muslim women in the Netherlands, triggered the murder of its director, Theo Van Gogh. Despite the fact that Hirsi Ali was set to appear with several other panelists, including Ahmed Mansour, a leading scholar and defender of Islam, many students, including members of the Harvard Islamic Society, objected to the event because they found Hirsi Ali’s politics offensive. Fearful of riling minority interests, the Harvard Foundation bowed to these complaints and canceled its endorsement. That the supposed caretaker of Harvard diversity would act in such a way and then resort to the most tired rhetoric in this current case should trouble us deeply.

The problem with Harvard culture is that it is a culture of appearances. Despite the fact that a central tenet of those who are supposedly stamping out racism is that we should be judged by words and ideas, not by race or cultural background, they themselves are the worst perpetuators of that culture. Since I’m the upper middle class white daughter of Harvard graduates who has endured relatively little hardship, my viewpoint is moot on many topics. If someone of my background questions an assertion that something is racist, she is deemed racist herself. We must strive for fair treatment of minority interests on campus but not at the cost of disenfranchisement of the majority.

The BMF and ABHW have now switched gears to kick start their "I Am Harvard" Campaign, which seeks to promote awareness of what they perceive as a problem of racism on campus. Though we may not all agree with the sentiment that motivated this campaign, we ought to embrace the effort, in order to demonstrate a campus wide commitment to racial progressivism. In this way, we may show that this is, in fact, our Harvard—not the divisive community Counter and his gang would like to invent as a weapon in their hyper-p.c. crusade.

Lucy M. Caldwell ’09 is a history and literature concentrator in Adams House. Her column appears regularly.