Harvard uses sexual assault allegations to push for more diversity initiatives
In response to sexual misconduct allegations against three professors, Harvard University’s anthropology department is creating eight committees to reevaluate the program’s culture.
Instead of focusing upon sexual misconduct, the mandates of the committees focus largely upon diversity-related initiatives.
Harvard University’s anthropology department is creating eight committees on diversity-related initiatives.
On May 29 and June 5, the Harvard Crimson reported on allegations of sexual misconduct against three Harvard anthropology professors. In response, the anthropology department instituted a comprehensive infrastructure to “conduct a year-long self-study that will allow us to identify our strengths and weaknesses and make meaningful and lasting departmental improvements so that we may reach our full potential.”
Eight subcommittees were established to oversee various aspects of the department’s self-evaluation. The mandates of the committees extended far beyond sexual misconduct, however.
In fact, they are largely focused on diversity-related initiatives.
For instance, the “Diversity in Student Concentrators, Graduate Admissions, and Faculty Recruitment and Promotion” subcommittee will review “the historical data on diversity across all department constituencies… [and] make recommendations for improvement, with explicit expectations and benchmarks.”
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The “Community Building and Inclusion” subcommittee will look at how to achieve “inclusiveness and cohesion” while evaluating the use of university resources for certain activities within the department.
A third committee will “conduct a full evaluation of the undergraduate and graduate curricula,” evaluating its “commitment to diversity and inclusion.”
The “Engagement” subcommittee will seek to identify ways in which the department can become “more widely engaged in activities beyond the department — at the university, within the regional community, and with the public more broadly.”
Though he was unfamiliar with the Harvard anthropology department situation, Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield told Campus Reform that “there has been a great change regarding sexual harassment in recent years from wanting to hush it up to insisting on making it public.”
“Publicity is supposed to be in the interest of women, which I doubt,” he remarked. “It is much more in the interest of feminism and its campaign to rule over American education, work, and families. The cure proposed for any shortcoming regarding sex is always the hiring of more women, meaning more feminist women.
”What we need is a direct debate with feminism,” he added.
Campus Reform reached out to Harvard University for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @BenZeisloft
