40-year Harvard professor pens scathing piece on school's 'exclusion of white males,' anti-Western trends

Fox News ^ | December 31, 2025 | Peter D'Abrosca

[MinorityRepublican]

A history professor who taught at Harvard University for 40 years has left the Ivy League for greener pastures, penning a biting critique on the state of the school on his way out the door.

In a piece titled "Why I'm Leaving Harvard," published in Compact Magazine, history professor James Hankins said he decided in 2021 to leave the school amid a flurry of wokeness and COVID restrictions, but honored a four-year retirement contract that expired just weeks ago.

"We had just endured almost two years under the university’s strict Covid regime," Hankins wrote. "This was a form of emergency governance that mirrored to a fault the whole country’s uncritical acceptance of The Science and its proclivity, when backed by public power, for tyrannous invasions of private life."

He added that the school forced professors to lecture wearing masks and give seminars via Zoom, which did not comport with his views on education.

Then, Hankins referenced the 2020 "Summer of Floyd," when violent riots broke out nationwide after George Floyd died at the hands of police in Minneapolis. He said the university's response, which he thought would amount to "empty virtue-signaling," turned out to be much more sinister, suggesting that discrimination against White men in graduate admissions became policy.

"In reviewing graduate student applicants in the fall of 2020 I came across an outstanding prospect who was a perfect fit for our program," wrote Hankins. "In past years this candidate would have risen immediately to the top of the applicant pool. In 2021, however, I was told informally by a member of the admissions committee that 'that' (meaning admitting a white male) was 'not happening this year.'"

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TOPICS: Conspiracy; Education
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[FreeReign]

...however, I was told informally by a member of the admissions committee that 'that' (meaning admitting a white male) was 'not happening this year.'"

That white dude should consider himself lucky that he didn't go to that anti-science, anti-freedom of expression, mind-numbing 'bot factory.

[MMusson]

If you are 40 years old and a white male, you have been discriminated against your entire life. If you are 60 years old, you have been discriminated against your entire working life.

[cgbg]

“I was told informally by a member of the admissions committee that ‘that’ (meaning admitting a white male) was ‘not happening this year.’”

Yup—systemic racism that exists in the real world is anti-white racism.

[FreeReign]

If you are 40 years old and a white male, you have been discriminated against your entire life. If you are 60 years old, you have been discriminated against your entire working life.

True. In the early '80's, right out of college, in the NY Times want ads, I was told that whites need not apply.

[Salman]

Harvard was always a service academy for a particular faction of the ruling class.

It is the interest of that faction that changed.

They were never the "good guys" in my estimation, but they didn't used to be in a state of total war against the majority of the working class.

[ansel12]

Around 1970 they were open about, the Texas unemployment office guy told me that the job he had was for black men only, and the IBM/corporate etc. employment busses stopping at college campuses would tell you they were only talking to no-white males.

[SFmom]

And if you are in your 70s, you were discriminated against and told exactly why….so you could sue before they got smart and shut up about it. This happened to my husband (although he didn’t sue…he just went independent and made more money than if he had stayed within Big Education.)

[aynrandfreak]

I guess it’s good that he eventually came forward, but I was reminded of the MeToo women who usually only came forward towards the end of their starlet days.

[Sunsong]

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus

[allendale]

As Governor Dukaks once said “ a fish rots from the head down.” Harvard’s putrid decay is seasoned witn DEI, anti white hysteria, anti Semitism and America hating wokeness. Even the ivy is dying.

[MinorityRepublican]

They’re not immune from the “woke virus”.

[HIDEK6]

… after George Floyd died at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

Why do we keep letting them get away with this propaganda?

[Sunsong]

self-pity is a helluva drug, imo.

[BEJ]

Harvard is also anti-oriental. If you have an Asian name and crazy high in math marks, they drop you. I’ve seen it done to one of my friends and have read about it. It is not a meritocracy.

[Organic Panic]

I bet politically connected white kids still get in no problem.

But now, anything out of Harvard, especially black graduates, will forever be seen as unqualified. And what they usually do is take a black student, who would be perfectly fine in a less rigorous college or a state college. But instead, they create all the stupid grievance studies degrees that require ZERO work.

[MinorityRepublican]

I bet politically connected white kids still get in no problem.

You'll have to be a Kennedy or a Newsom to get in.

Otherwise, it's not happening.