Harvard has been taken hostage?

In normal times, an institution like Harvard University thrives on publicity. Then again, these are not normal times. Harvard may be the most elite brand in American higher education, but it is also a great big target for American conservatives, who are fed up with the torrent of leftism that comes from the Ivy League and other elite academic institutions.

At the same time, conservatives will brag about Ivy League credentials when they have them. President Trump had made lots of dismissive comments about Harvard and its sister schools, but he is a graduate of an Ivy League institution (University of Pennsylvania) and he had often bragged about the credential. Vice President J.D. Vance holds a law degree from Yale, and he had not turned it back in when last I checked. This is symbolic of the conservative quandary. There is no question that the Ivy League represents the epitome of the academic establishment. A degree from an elite institution instantly opens doors and confers value. That’s how elite institutions and premium brands work. On the other hand, the same elite is working against everything American conservatism stands for.

But the Ivy League, the capstone of elite education in the United States, was long ago taken over by what Irving Kristol decades ago called the “adversary culture.” Adversary to what? Well, adversary to anything conservative, anything connected to traditional culture, the Judeo-Christian tradition, western civilization, American patriotism, and so on. In other words, Harvard and its sister elite institutions have declared war on America and have committed themselves to war on traditional values, but they want that war to be subsidized and largely paid for by the American taxpayer.

Harvey Mansfield, a legendary conservative professor of government at Harvard, now retired, has traced the leftist march through his institution. Mansfield was elected full professor at Harvard in 1969, and the majority of faculty were then liberal. Now, he says, the majority are leftists. As he explains, the liberals loved their country, took pride in it, and wanted to improve it with liberal policies. In contrast, the typical leftist progressive now in control at the university is driven by a “loathing of his country.” Mansfield explained that “it goes beyond embarrassment to real dislike of America, and in a way, therefore, of themselves, because after all they’re Americans.” The great leap to the left took place in a shockingly short period of time.

The progressive faculty members took advantage of several features that allowed the academic establishment to be pushed left fast. They turned academic freedom on its head and defined an acceptable range of ideological positions. Conservatives were let out in the cold. They then used faculty power in hiring to fill all vacant positions with newly minted revolutionaries. They used activism to push the institutions to the left and took advantage of every opportunity to blend symbolism with real policy. Faculty and student pressure led, for example, to the removal of the ROTC from several Ivy League campuses as a result of anti-war protests. Under government pressure, most have returned to campus, but hardly fit in the progressive culture.

Department after department lurched to the left, and an increasingly progressive faculty, driven by the onward march of ideological dynamics, drew increasingly liberal students. As several observers of the current controversies have remarked, the university administrators are not the real power on campus—the leftist students and faculty are.

Ruth R. Wisse, who taught at Harvard from 1993 to 2014, recently described the university as an outpost for Islamism. She described specific actions that led to the university’s complicity. “Harvard was a soft target for foreign penetration,” she explained, “having developed an adversarial relationship to the American government and increasingly to the country itself.”

Like so many others, Professor Wisse described how the adversary culture works. She also explained how the leftward dynamic operated: “Meanwhile, the 1960s civil-rights laws that outlawed discrimination failed to satisfy those who sought equal outcomes. The university responded with group preferences in hiring for women and minorities. That elevated grievance groups and put Harvard solidly in the activist ‘progressive’ camp. With rare exceptions, there would be no more hiring of conservatives or teaching their ‘reactionary’ ideas.”

Harvard University had been captured, but how? This question underlines the concept of ideological capture and clarifies its importance. Ideological capture takes place when one system of ideas replaces another and then becomes a new orthodoxy that creates a new ideological space that forces the old ideas out—permanently. An ideology establishes itself and eventually captures the entire institution. The most elite institutions are targeted first, because the less elite institutions will inevitably follow their lead. Follow the leader is not just a children’s game. It is the biggest game played among colleges and universities. Moundville State College desperately wants to hire Ivy League faculty to boost its own reputation. Like a net, ideological capture pulls in school after school. By now, the process is overwhelmingly complete. Thankfully, there are a few exceptions, but the operative word here is few.

We do well to follow the unfolding war between Harvard and the White House. It’s more important than most Americans—even most conservatives—understand. Ideological capture may be exemplified by the Ivy League, but it is not limited to the Ivy League. You have been warned.