Fraternities and sororities at Harvard University have been shutting down and going co-ed because of a new policy that strips students belonging to single-gender groups of their ability to get faculty recommendations for prestigious scholarships and their ability to apply for campus leadership positions. But there are still two single-gender groups that Harvard students can join without getting punished.
Those are sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha and fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha, according to The Harvard Crimson. These organizations, while open respectively to women and men of any race, consist largely of black women and men.
Now, here’s the catch: it’s not that Harvard is discriminating in favor of blacks. The school might actually be discriminating against Asians, but that’s something we’ll get to in a moment. No, Harvard told me that the sanctions “are not applicable in this case because the groups are not comprised primarily of Harvard College students.”
You see, the two Greek organizations span multiple colleges. Alpha Kappa Alpha includes Harvard, Wellesley, and MIT students, whereas Alpha Phi Alpha is open to Harvard, Tufts, and MIT students. Still, that doesn’t seem very fair…it should be either everyone gets freedom of association without consequences or no one, right?
But this isn’t the only confusing action that cultural Marxism has caused Harvard to take. As I alluded to earlier, the school rescinded admission offers for ten students who, in a private Facebook group, shared pictures and messages that Harvard deemed offensive. The school’s also in hot water for allegedly discriminating against Asian American applicants on the basis of their personality.
That case will go to court in less than a couple of weeks, so stay tuned.
Jeffrey Epstein donated $6.5 million to Harvard back in 2003, according to Newsweek. A few years later, the billionaire was the subject of a probable cause affidavit for sexual exploitation of minors and Harvard’s school paper asked the school if it planned on giving the money back.
“Mr. Epstein’s gift is funding important research using mathematics to study areas such as evolutionary theory, viruses, and cancers,” Harvard said. “The University is not considering returning this gift.”
Now remember that this was after 2002 to 2005, the dates during which court documents say Epstein put together his extensive network of underage victims, but before he was indicted in 2007, before Epstein got convicted of soliciting a teen for prostitution in 2008, and before Alexander Acosta, who stepped down as Labor Secretary Friday, made a deal not to prosecute Epstein that same year.
Harvard said last week that the $6.5 million Epstein had donated was already spent, but you’ve got to wonder if that was the case in 2008. And the school’s action is particularly curious given how in May, it outright fired Ronald Sullivan, a dean who was at one point representing accused rapist Harvey Weinstein, amid pressure from students and faculty.
If this kind of deranged guilty until proven innocent and guilt by association mindset is Harvard’s standard, what does taking money from Epstein say about the premier academic institution?
Whereas, after the Parkland massacre, Kyle Kashuv’s classmates David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez pushed for gun control, Kyle advocated for the removal of gun-free zones, background checks, and has called out the Broward County deputy who didn’t enter the school during the shooting. This made him really popular with conservatives like Ben Shapiro.
Kyle was ranked second in his Parkland class and got a 1550 on the SAT, according to The Daily Wire, and so got accepted to Harvard on what looked to be academic merit. But his activism made him a target and haters had a compelling reason to ask Harvard to rescind his admission after the release of a Google Doc between Kyle and other Parkland classmates in which Kyle said the n-word multiple times.
Kyle put out a statement saying he’s “embarrassed” by the remarks on the document, claiming that he and his fellow classmates were “using callous and inflammatory language in an effort to be as extreme and shocking as possible.”
Harvard sent Kyle a letter asking for a written explanation and Kyle responded with a similar note, suggesting that he had changed since he wrote those comments before the shooting. Harvard replied, saying that while the admissions committee “appreciated [his] candor,” it also “takes seriously the qualities of maturity and moral character.” The school proceeded to rescind Kyle’s admission offer.
Now, there are a few factors at play here. First of all, keep in mind that Kyle’s biggest defender, Shapiro, hasn’t had the best track record when it comes to defending speech: he agreed that ABC was right to fire Roseanne Barr and apparently told journalist Denise McAllister that she wasn’t welcome to write anymore at the Daily Wire after she made some remarks that were anti-gay, though nothing as taboo as the n-word. Back to Kyle, though, would it have made a difference if Kyle were pro-gun control instead of anti-gun control? I’m not so sure. Sure, the left wanted him booted, but Laura Loomer was also a big proponent for Harvard to pull its offer. Also, remember that Harvard rescinded its offers to at least ten students a couple years ago after the revelation that they had shared offensive memes in a private Facebook group.
There was no indication that those students were conservative or liberal, nor was there any massive campaign to get them booted. But Harvard’s decision was political in both that case and Kyle’s in the sense that it limits the free speech of prospective students, even if that’s freedom to say some pretty awful things. And don’t forget that the school now punishes students who join single-gender groups like frats or sororities.
After the Mueller report, some lefties are still not letting the whole Trump-Russia collusion fantasy die. One of them seems to be former vice president Al Gore, who spoke at Harvard’s commencement and suggested that President Trump is above the law, according to Campus Reform.
“Supporters of authoritarianism define loyalty to America’s core principles as treason against its new would-be sovereign,” said Gore. “This explains the appeal to would-be autocrats of multiple bromances with extreme authoritarians, at least one of whom, in our current time, has been allowed to sink his teeth into America’s democratic electoral process and play with it like a chew toy.”
OK so Gore was probably pretty proud at coming up with that metaphor, but how accurate is it really? Sure, you had the Russian troll farm accounts on social media, but 1) not all of the info put out by those accounts was false and 2) it really boils down to whether consumers or Big Tech corps are responsible for quality control of their news. I’d argue it’s the consumers’ responsibility, but hey, I’m totally cool with Facebook and Twitter taking the liability, as long they’re regulated as publishers, which means: bye-bye censoring conservatives.
And you’ve just got to ask yourself: who in their right mind, on a day of celebration, would want to subject themselves to a political diatribe? From the left or right? And it’s kind of scary to think that Generation Z, the zoomers, might get actual pleasure out of listening to this kind of claptrap. Anyways, Trump and Russia weren’t the only targets on Gore’s list.
Gore proceeded to talk about global warming and fossil fuels.
Perhaps the most telling part of Gore’s speech was when he outright admitted “I am also here to recruit you.”
