Truth is not relative; it does not depend upon the “context”, and it is not possessive. This would seem to be unnecessary to explain to a university whose iconic motto is Veritas – Latin for “Truth.”
Harvard University was founded in 1636 by the Massachusetts colonial legislature, “dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches,” to provide a proper Christian education for ministers. Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, it was primarily training Congregational clergy in its early years. Alas, the founders of this prestigious university are probably rolling over in their graves in anguish at how far their institution has fallen since those heady early days.
If you’ve been traveling lately, or just awakened from a coma, you might not be aware of what has happened lately concerning some of our most hallowed grounds of higher education. Last week three presidents from three of our most prestigious universities appeared before Congress to answer questions concerning antisemitism on their campuses following the October 7th massacre of Jews in Israel by Hamas.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board put it this way: “The great benefit of last week’s performance by three elite-school presidents before Congress is that it tore the mask off the intellectual and political corruption of much of the American academy. The world was appalled by the equivocation of the academic leaders when asked if advocating genocide against Jews violated their codes of conduct. But the episode merely revealed the value system that has become endemic at too many prestigious schools.
The presidents of MIT, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania hid behind concerns about free speech. But as everyone paying attention knows, these schools don’t protect speech they disagree with. They punish it.”
Penn President Elizabeth Magill resigned in the wake of her testimony, as did board of trustees’ chairman Scott Bok, as pressure mounted from angry donors. But Harvard President Claudine Gay remains in office as her board of trustees supported her despite morally bankrupt statements, not to mention allegations of plagiarism in her academic work. It seems Harvard is more interested in maintaining their identity politics rather than protecting their Jewish students.
Gerard Baker of The Wall Street Journal was particularly incensed in his column. He said, “In Ms. Gay’s case, the attempts to mitigate the fallout from her response were so awful she should be fired for them alone, let alone what she actually said at the congressional hearing last week.”
He explains: “First she issued a statement that made a straightforward mockery—untruth might be a better word—of what she had said a day before at the hearing. Anyone threatening Jewish students would be “held to account” it said—suggesting that the “commitment to free speech” she touted in Congress was no longer operative now that her job was on the line. Clearly the damage-limitation squad didn’t think even this volte-face went far enough, and so a little later she gave an interview to the student newspaper, the Crimson. It’s worth reading the whole thing for a valuable insight into the mind of the person who holds the most prestigious job in higher education.
First of all: “I am sorry,” she said. “Words matter. “Anyone thinking of attending Harvard might like to note that it took the head of that institution more than 48 hours to appreciate that “words matter”—and this after a quarter-century in academia.”
But the worst was yet to come. Ms. Gay tried to explain her unconscionable remarks in the hearing by explaining what went wrong. “I got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures. Substantively, I failed to convey what is my truth.” (emphasis mine)
I have never described truth with a personal pronoun. Truth is not possessive; it does not belong to one or another. There is only one truth and it does not claim ownership. Truth is absolute – whether you recognize it or not. How could she describe it as “my truth?”
Baker explains: “Few phrases are as reliable as “my truth” for identifying seasoned purveyors of cant and doubletalk. Truth isn’t something that can be identified or modified by a possessive pronoun. If my truth is different from your truth and your truth is different from her truth, these aren’t truths. “My truth” is the device deployed to elevate the particular viewpoint of a member of a particular group or identity, by claiming the validation of the “truth” for a narrow ideological cause. And this is what we saw last week at that hearing—the narrow, exclusive intolerance of the ideology that has our universities in its grip.”
Sadly, our universities seem to be more interested in protecting their ideology and signaling their compliance with the new liberalism that doesn’t protect free speech – it punishes that speech it disagrees with.
Baker says classical liberalism might be described as the Voltaire principle: I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. The new liberalism seems to follow Lenin’s principle: I disagree with what you say, and I will do all I can to prevent you from saying it.
It’s time to reconsider where to go to get the best education in America.
