Educational Leadership

At a summit of university presidents, the talk was about Harvard and its plummeting reputation.

The president, Claudine Gay, told the campus newspaper that she “should have had the presence of mind” to answer differently.

The most profound lesson for me of these past two years is that alumni and students could come together across generations, across race and ethnicity, religion, gender and across all the other boundaries that can divide us to fight for what’s right. Today’s students are better off with the splendid diversity around them. And if they can stay united, maybe they will finally upend the status quo and bring us closer to a society that truly offers equal opportunity for all. That’s the real American dream my parents handed me when they left everything they knew on the far side of the Pacific Ocean more than 60 years ago. It wasn’t about getting into Harvard, and it shouldn’t be.

The Ivy League university’s problem in this case is that its strongest argument is also its weakest one.

The principle is highly valued by many at American universities, but critics say it is sometimes invoked to dodge repercussions.

What’s up with America’s misguided obsession with Ivy League schools?

The complaint comes two days after immigration authorities announced that international students could not take only virtual classes this fall without risk of deportation, contrary to more flexible rules this spring as a result of the coronavirus pandemic that forced most schools online.

The university and its critics can transform this polarizing culture war controversy into a constructive moment––if both take steps to placate the other side.

A reader continues the conversation with James Fallows on the Ivy League in the age of Trump