Replies

I attended Harvard back in the 50s. It was more than a little skewed then, but there were numerous top faculty.

Then came the cultural revolution, the Vietnam protests, the feminists, the race baiters, and the armies of Political Correctness. Now the departments with which I am familiar contain no one worth studying with. They are nothing but gender benders and brainwashers.

Back in the 50s, they were already trying to persuade us to be good little liberals, but at least they presented us with some basic texts and facts to make up our own minds. No longer. The Ivy colleges are broken, and it's not clear whether they can ever be fixed.

For example, the English Departments at Harvard, Columbia, and Duke were at various times put into receivership under committees brought in from outside, because they had decayed so badly and obviously were incapable of putting themselves in order. But the college administrators chose folks like Stanley Fish, Stephen Greenblatt, and Edward Said to put them back in order. Now they are far worse than they ever were.

It's a pity. Centuries of great alumni and generous donors have been betrayed. Scholarship and truth have been betrayed. And the band plays on.