Harvard courts clickbait instead of excellence
Who says Harvard is a bastion of the intellectual elite? Just like the rest of us, the blue chippiest of American educational institutions is a sucker for clickbait.
There’s no other way to explain the excruciatingly embarrassing contretemps over an eye-poppingly odd couple of fellows named by the university’s prestigious Institute of Politics: former White House spokesman Sean Spicer and formerly imprisoned whistle-blower Chelsea Manning.
As the geniuses who dreamed up this pairing undoubtedly intended, the news earned Harvard buzzy headlines. Then came the blowback from partisans on the right, who see Manning as a traitor. Harvard ungallantly pulled the crimson carpet out from under Manning ’s feet. Now there’s the inevitable noise from the left.
If a former Army intelligence specialist is considered unworthy for violating public trust, Manning supporters wonder, why is Harvard having no second thoughts about Spicer, who hollered when journalists wouldn’t report untrue crowd sizes? It doesn’t help that the institute had earlier named Corey Lewandowski, another former Trump spokesperson, as a fellow. He had distinguished himself by manhandling a female reporter.
I leave it to others to ponder how either Trump mouthpiece embodies veritas, the Latin word for truth on the Harvard seal. Far more disturbing is what this says about a culture that Harvard is supposed to embody.
As a longtime journalist and now a member of a college faculty, I’m all for the First Amend- ment and academic freedom. I have no problem with Harvard inviting Spicer, Lewandowski or Manning to speak and answer questions. But a fellowship is something different: It’s an honor, a seal of academic approval. It provides a berth for doing research and speaking out. In the cases at hand, it is also a means of laundering a résumé.
Harvard could have found much more deserving people to celebrate. One is Martin Mendez, a young Mexican journalist who returned home under the threat of death rather than waste away in deplorable detention facilities while U.S. authorities dragged their feet over an asylum request that they admit was legitimate. Or how about John Tye, a State Department whistle-blower who is starting an organization to help others avoid the massive legal fees his principles cost him?
Problem is, courageous journalists and principled public servants aren’t trending on Twitter.
Academe should be our last bastion of unadulterated excellence, the one place where you’d hope to find decision-makers with enough perspective and intellectual integrity to be immune from buzz lust. But, no. In an era when anybody can build a following on social media, its tinsel sparkle seems to have more appeal for Harvard than the sheen of sterling. To quote a certain public figure who knows a thing or two about social media and what it takes to trend on it: Sad.