In his 60 years on the Harvard faculty, Kenan professor of government Harvey C. Mansfield was a rare and reliable conservative voice—an outspoken opponent of grade inflation, affirmative action, and the dearth of conservatives on the faculty. “It doesn’t seem to occur to those who demand more diversity in the universities,” he wrote in 1990, “that the most important diversity is not in sex or class but in opinion.”
Today, affirmative action in admissions is barred by the Supreme Court; curbing grade inflation is a faculty priority; viewpoint diversity is a Harvard watchword. And Mansfield, who retired in 2023, has published the book Where Harvard Went Wrong: Fifty Years of Commentary That Fell on Deaf Ears (Encounter Books), a collection of speeches, essays, and recaps of his contributions to faculty meetings, where his pointed questions were politely received.
Over email this spring, Mansfield, who is now 94, answered Harvard Magazine’s questions about his views on Harvard (past and present), his philosophy of higher education, and the differences he sees between free speech and free expression. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Universities have lately been reckoning with their position in American culture—most recently, in Yale’s self-critical report about how it lost the public trust. What would you diagnose as higher education’s number one problem?
Yale’s self-critical report is a welcome surprise. In brief, universities have lost public trust through the partisan behavior that they should have avoided. The way to regain public favor is not to pretend to be nonpartisan but rather to see to it that the one dominating party—the left—is brought to agree to the active presence of the other side. This needs to happen in the admission of students, the selection of deans, and especially in the hiring of faculty. Yale has the right idea, and Harvard should sign on to it.
You have argued for changes in Harvard’s undergraduate curriculum—such as more instruction in American history, religion, and the military. How do you think that would change the way students approach the world?
The undergraduate (and graduate) curriculum is a hodgepodge of partisan certitudes. Of course, I think that Harvard students would do better under the general curriculum I propose in my book.
Let’s take Homer and Shakespeare, present but not featured in Harvard’s curriculum. What do they have to teach us? They speak to us of human greatness, a conservative topic that liberals love to make light of. Greatness is scientifically unproven, covered over by the averages of social science, and resolutely ignored by the theorists in literature. Conservatives, who like to admire what they think is above them, would bring back greatness to be studied at Harvard. The curriculum should impart a sense of respect for our inheritance and wonder that our great thinkers should so remarkably disagree, suggesting that our problems are clearer than our solutions.
Harvard students should leave the College with a certain pride mixed with humility, their minds a notch above the ideas they came with.
“Belonging” has become an important term for universities, and a concept that has survived their public retreat from DEI. It implies that a community has a special obligation to make its members feel welcome. In your view, does belonging have any place in a university?
Belonging to what? A noun is needed. Belonging to a community devoted to the cultivation of the mind, both the theoretical mind that raises one’s sights and the practical mind that makes one mindful of necessities. Don’t despise the mind of a quarterback.
This academic year, Harvard implemented the Chatham House Rule, an honor system of anonymity inside the classroom, to encourage students to speak without fear of public shaming. Would you have found that rule useful in your own classes, especially after the advent of social media?
It’s better to take personal responsibility for one’s ideas. Chatham House is for fearful politicians.
For decades, you tried to persuade Harvard to curb grade inflation. (You famously gave students two grades: one earned grade and one “ironic” grade that was sent to the registrar.) This spring, the faculty voted to cap A’s at 20 percent of letter grades. Is this the kind of solution you were imagining?
Our present action on grade inflation is, if it proceeds, better than nothing. But it fails to recapture the notion of average—the Harvard average—in order to reveal what we take to be “extraordinary,” the official description of an A. A’s should contrast with B’s and C’s.
You wrote a book called Manliness, and you’ve been clear about your opinions on feminism and women and gender studies. Do you think universities are equipped today to interrogate the differences between men and women?
Harvard should contain both partisans and opponents of feminism, which generally denies sex differences. Women’s studies should contain both camps. Honest interrogation of that question is not easy, perhaps because everyone has an opinion, and we all have a stake in the answer.
In a speech in 2023, upon receiving the Claremont Institute’s Henry Salvatori Prize, you mapped out the differences between free speech and free expression. Speech, you said, is externally focused, designed to argue and persuade, while expression is internally driven, a statement of your own preferences. What do you think this means for a university?
A university should encourage speech rather than expression, because the reasons you give in speech can be examined and studied. The gestures, shouts, and slogans of expression do not supply reasons. Protests of this kind should be denounced rather than indulged.
Unfortunately, through a 1943 Supreme Court decision (West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette), expression has come to be confused with speech. Expression, using irrational means, seeks to impress others with one’s noise and power; speech tries to convince them with arguments. In general, but not always, protests in universities knowingly violate the rules and the spirit of academia.
Encouraging diversity of opinion is now a stated goal of Harvard’s administration. How would your experience here have been different had you not been one of the few conservatives around?
Ah, there is a pleasure in being one against many when one thinks the many are wrong, but it is ever too easy to become self-righteous. I do think I would have had a better chance at academic honors if I had not been outside the company of eligibles. Yet I have had honors from conservatives that my liberal friends probably held to be good enough for me.
Universities are struggling now with defining their mission. What do you think is the purpose of a university today? To educate students? To conduct research? Do universities still have a broader civic role to play outside of their narrow function?
Universities have a broader function than does society. Society is always based on official opinions that universities question and do not take for granted. Universities ask whether our ways are as sound as we in our societies think. Universities at their best are skeptical but still cautious. They need to remember that the peoples they live among can get angry at them. Don’t forget the experience of Socrates.
We need to explain to our fellow citizens that what we do is worthwhile. Our science can enable them to live longer—but how about living better?
