Harvard Preaches Progressivism — It Also Preserves Power

A spectre is haunting Harvard — the spectre of Neo-Marxism. All the powers of late-capitalist America have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise its presence.

The only problem? This spectre is little more than fiction. For an institution increasingly conflated with American progressivism, Harvard remains a conservative bastion.

This conservatism is most evident in Harvard’s outputs. Consider, for instance, The Crimson’s annual senior survey over the last few years: Among graduating students entering the workforce, the most popular industries are finance, tech, and consulting — lucrative fields that reproduce the status quo Harvard purportedly challenges.

Equally symptomatic of such conservatism is the University’s highest governing board, the Harvard Corporation — the oldest in the Western Hemisphere. With an endowment valued at over $50 billion, it surely seeks to preserve and expand the University’s wealth, not upend the economic system that made its accumulation possible.

It is true that only a minority of Harvard affiliates identify as conservative — just 13 percent of students in the most recent graduating class according to a Crimson survey, and a few vocal professors. But to reduce an institution’s politics to that of its members is to ignore the material actions of the institution itself.

Harvard’s financial tactics vividly underscore this dissonance. Even as undergraduates engage in climate activism, faculty produce scholarship on prison abolition, and affiliates constructed a three-week long encampment in the Yard, Harvard has failed to publicly divest all endowment holdings tied to fossil fuels, the prison-industrial complex, and a state perpetuating crimes against humanity.

While the former actions — advocacy, research, and protests — tend to capture more media attention, it is the latter — financial complicity — that has a substantial, economic impact. When it comes to the endowment, it’s hard to believe that the University is guided by a progressive ethic and not a commitment to hoarding wealth.

This profit-driven approach also manifests itself in Harvard’s labor practices. Time-caps on non-tenure-track positions force preceptors and lecturers into difficult, precarious conditions. And while recent union negotiations offer a more promising outlook, Harvard continues to partake in anti-union behavior, engaging, for example, in alleged union-busting tactics against residential advisers in 2024.

And yes, a Harvard education is far from conservative. Foundational courses like Social Studies 10 emphasize the work of revolutionary thinkers like Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, neglecting the contributions of conservative scholars like Edmund Burke and Milton Friedman — this is lamentable. But a curriculum that features progressive perspectives over conservative ideas does not necessarily make for a progressive institution.

Put simply, a university that teaches Marx is not a Marxist university.

Indeed, curricular engagement with radical thought can be understood as an exercise in containment rather than an endorsement. By incorporating leftist critiques into the curriculum, the University performs a façade of ideological openness, all while ensuring that critical analysis stays confined to the classroom — lest students engage in disruption and protest.

And only a minority of Harvard students read thinkers like Marx each semester. Those studying Economics or Computer Science — two of the most popular concentrations at the College — tend to have little exposure to critical theory or radical leftist thought in their courses.

Regardless of concentration, Harvard’s social culture also remains deeply elitist and class-divided. Indeed, some self-proclaimed student activists reject conservatism yet participate in selective pre-professional student organizations or exclusionary social clubs — vocally advocating for equity and inclusion while reinforcing structures of privilege and hierarchy.

I admit that the perception of Harvard as progressive is not unfounded. But it is incomplete.

University affiliates might employ the rhetoric of social justice, but Harvard’s material actions continue to prioritize institutional stability and the accumulation of wealth. Behind its progressive image lies Harvard’s fundamental conservatism.

The spectre of Neo-Marxism is not haunting Harvard. We may speak the language of transformation, but the actions of our University remain anchored in the preservation of power.

We do not threaten the status quo. We are one of conservatism’s most powerful assets.

Andrés Muedano ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Adams House