A gift of money, and then the backlash

Uproar over Harvard donor’s backing of right-winger? Saw that coming.

Alumni, students, faculty, and ordinary citizens have howled when colleges have accepted donations from hard-right conservatives or those who donated to so-called politically incorrect candidates or causes.

The uproar over Harvard University’s acceptance of a $300 million donation, with naming rights attached, by hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin was, alas, predictable (“Harvard donor’s support for DeSantis angers students,” Page A1, April 13). Griffin also supported right-wing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with a donation. (Interestingly, as Globe reporter Hilary Burns reports, Griffin contributed as well to President Biden’s inaugural committee and to the Obama Foundation.) This contretemps is part and parcel of a national phenomenon in which alumni, students, faculty members, and ordinary citizens have howled when colleges have accepted donations, with naming rights, from hard-right conservatives or those who donated to ultraconservative or otherwise so-called politically incorrect candidates or causes. Nor is the problem limited to academia.

There are two problems with this movement. First, this intolerance of the views of others ill becomes those connected to higher education. Universities are supposed to be dedicated to the search for truth (Harvard’s motto, after all, is “Veritas”). It is contrary to this mission for one faction to announce that it has discovered the only truth and that dissent will not be tolerated. Second, history teaches that politics and culture are cyclical. What is politically incorrect today might be the reigning ethos tomorrow. As the philosopher George Santayana warned: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”

HARVEY SILVERGLATE

Cambridge

The writer is a civil liberties and criminal defense lawyer and author.