Typically we don’t find ourselves cheering on the folks at that Ivory Tower up in Cambridge, Mass. But whenever there is an outbreak of common sense on our elite campuses, we aim to encourage it.
In that spirit, as the year draws to a close, we salute Harvard and especially its president, Drew Faust.
This month we were given fresh evidence of Faust’s leadership when she put the kibosh on the Harvard Dining Services’ decision to stop buying water machines from the Israeli company SodaStream.
The decision, made more than six months ago but never publicly disclosed until the Harvard Crimson recently reported it, followed complaints by Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee and Islamic Society that seeing SodaStream machines was a “microaggression” to their members.
Faust immediately ordered an investigation, complaining she’d never been informed of the move. At her direction, the university provost issued a statement reaffirming that Harvard’s “procurement decisions…will not be driven by individuals’ views” on “political controversy.”
Good for her. She likewise acted swiftly back in May when she denounced plans by Harvard’s Extension School Cultural Club to hold an on-campus Satanic “black mass.”
Though she refused to cancel the event on First Amendment grounds, she called the student group’s decision to sponsor the ritual “abhorrent” and “a fundamental affront.”
Then, for good measure, she attended a service at a campus church in order to reaffirm “our respect for the Catholic faith at Harvard.” Students took the hint and canceled the black mass themselves.
And back in 2011, recall, Faust lifted Harvard’s 40-year ban on ROTC — the first Ivy League school to do so — after Congress repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” and cited the military’s record of inclusion and service.
Now, we know there’s plenty of nonesense that still goes on up on Harvard’s campus. Even so, it’s refreshing to see — and we’d like to applaud —an Ivy League president who refuses to reflexively jump to the demands of the political correctness crowd.
