I did not go to Harvard. This has never been an aim of mine. I never applied to it, never gave it a chance to reject me, not for college or grad school or continuing ed or lessons in Harvarding or whatever else Harvard may offer. Yet because I live and breathe, Harvard and its goings-on has been inescapable background in my life. Anything that happens at Harvard, the Iviest of Ivy League universities, is news—national or international.

And anyone who went to Harvard will, per tradition, either let you know (a reputation shared, fairly or not, with vegans and polyamorists) or be so evasive about it, so concerned that you will think them a snob, that they can speak about their hallowed alma mater only in euphemistic terms: they went to school somewhere near Boston.

But the Harvard-est thing of all is to write a think-piece about why Harvard doesn’t matter, or shouldn’t matter, or should maybe just go away entirely, and why you, a Harvard student or graduate or professor, are uniquely positioned to explain this. As a Harvardian, they begin, in a holding-forth about Harvard, one that assumes an audience of people as interested in Harvard as they are. (OK, fine, this is also a thing at Yale.)

Normally, my tolerance for this is nil. But the times are not normal. You can find Harvardian navel-gazing insufferable and still respect the institution as the collective endeavour of the very impressive. You can think, enough about Harvard already, and still think it’s chilling suppression of speech and knowledge and liberalism and whatnot for the Trump administration to effectively try to shut Harvard down.

And the reason I am here, in The Canadian Jewish News, bringing this up?........

© Canadian Jewish News