Where Harvard Went Wrong

Fifty Years of Commentary that Fell on Deaf Ears

Harvey Mansfield (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

200 Seiten

2026
Encounter Books,USA (Verlag)
978-1-64177-501-4 (ISBN)

Noch nicht erschienen (ca. August 2026)
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The book is a collection of the talks Harvey Mansfield gave to his colleagues at Harvard on major educational issues from 1974 to 2025. Six articles from the undergraduate newspaper, the Harvard Crimson in 2025 treat the issues in the clash between Harvard and the Trump Administration. This was an unprecedented invitation to a professor, widely read and discussed, covering the idea of an Ivory Tower, affirmative action for conservatives, free speech and protest speech, the origins of woke, science and the humanities, what conservatives offer to education. These are preceded by a talk that contrasts the new and the old Harvard, setting the stage for conflict today. Another item is a reform curriculum for a college with ambition. A study titled "the suicide of meritocracy" brings up the grade inflation everywhere today: everyone wants to choose students by merit, yet no one wants to test and grade it according to merits.

Why do universities say they must keep up with change? Aren't there principles that do not change? Education needs tradition as well as progress. Science is always new; humanities are mostly old. How did Harvey Mansfield choose to address his colleagues? His faculty speeches, laced with humor, show one professor standing up to a whole faculty, not with taunts and insults, but with arguments. The author spent the life of his career defending lost causes, which now, after his retirement, have suddenly become winners--affirmative action and representation for conservatives.

A university seems like a simple thing--students learn the knowledge professors teach. But professors disagree and students react--it's not so simple. Our universities have botched their job. They failed to see the need for the balance of opinion that permits faculty and students to disagree safely and reasonably.. They failed to appreciate the special character of institutions devoted to weighing the values that society takes for granted. The ivory tower sits in its society but rises above it.

These are the topics and issues that teem in the talks of one professor to his university in our time.

Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center where he directs the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. After graduating from Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, he tried many felony cases as a prosecutor in the Cook County States’ Attorney’s Office in Chicago. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Constitutional Studies and the Bradley Prize, Professor Barnett has been a visiting professor at Penn, Northwestern and Harvard Law School. His publications includes thirteen books and countless scholarly articles, book reviews, and op-eds. In 2004, he argued the medical marijuana case of Gonzalez v. Raich before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2012, he represented the National Federation of Independent Business in its constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act in NFIB v. Sebelius. He’s appeared in numerous documentaries and portrayed a prosecutor in the 2010 science-fiction feature film, InAlienable.

Erscheint lt. Verlag	12.8.2026
Zusatzinfo	Illustrations
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	139 x 215 mm
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik ► Erwachsenenbildung
ISBN-10	1-64177-501-7 / 1641775017
ISBN-13	978-1-64177-501-4 / 9781641775014
Zustand	Neuware