Staff Reports
On Thursday, The Harvard Crimson editorial board released an op-ed that stunned the majority of Americans. The board’s message was clear: Harvard should disavow the right-wing donor, Ken Griffin, and his contribution, which could promote “undue influences.”
‘Use This Money Well’: Harvard Editorial Board Says To Use Conservative Donor’s $300 Million To Fund Ethnic Studies https://t.co/hYcQXPw2ME
— US Burning (@UsBurning) April 20, 2023
The editorial board further criticized Harvard University for naming a building after Griffin, citing his political ties to Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The Harvard Crimson argues that by condoning these individuals and their values, Harvard is implicitly encouraging a campaign of sensationalizing, slandering, and erasing the identities of Black and queer students.
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will be renamed the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences https://t.co/2p3Npl779C
— Harvard University (@Harvard) April 11, 2023
Griffin’s support for DeSantis is also called into question by the editors. They assert that DeSantis helped suppress African American studies and LGBT material in schools. According to the editorial, DeSantis criticized the AP African American Studies course in February, prompting College Board to change the syllabus’s contents. In 2022, the Florida legislature passed laws banning the teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation topics in grades K-3 which they later increased to K-12.
The editors of The Harvard Crimson called on the university to explicitly denounce DeSantis’ policies, use Griffin’s donation to fund research of “contemporary challenges” such as Climate Change or the “decline of democracy,” and give the remaining money to academic departments that support marginalized communities that are significantly impacted by the renaming and the governor’s education policies.
It seems that Harvard’s Crimson editorial board is pandering to the radical left by prioritizing left-wing ideology over genuine academic research. Once again, we see the progressive agenda taking precedence over the Ivy League institution’s intellectual integrity. It is not just the renaming of buildings or the influencing of academic research that undermines academia, but also the promotion of biased opinions that restricts freedom of thought- which the Crimson editorial board appears to be advocating for.
