Stories of Early Harvard
In early May 2022, a hacker, possibly responding to Harvard University's April 2022 report on slavery,
hacked this website. This apparent attempt to silence our voice will not succeed!
ESSAY: "HARVARD ON THE WAY DOWN" in AmericanThinker.com
Title page of "Harvard & The Legacy of Slavery" Report (April 2022)
CRITIQUES OF HARVARD's LEGACY OF SLAVERY REPORT*
by A. J. Melnick
In April 2022, Harvard University released an official report titled, Harvard & The Legacy of Slavery.
Harvard President Lawrence Bacow characterized it in this way:
"...our commitment to truth means that we must embrace
it even when it makes us uncomfortable or causes us pain."
This is true. But after a careful review of this report, one must question just how deep the University's commitment to the truth really is. While the report and the accompanying video do document some painful historical truths regarding slavery and rightly shine a light on them, the report mixes those in with numerous half-truths, historical sleights of hand, and, in some cases, what can only be seen as extreme bias and anti-Christian animus.
The important historical contributions the report does make are often interspersed with many deeply flawed assumptions and distorted interpretations. It is neither balanced nor nuanced, and, in the end, comes off as propaganda, which, unfortunately, renders much of the project suspect.
A real commitment to the truth (Veritas) would have necessitated a different approach to this issue - one more narrowly tailored to what is well documented. Instead, the report's authors seemed more committed to achieving a particular narrative - one cloaked in 'woke' ideology - than in a balanced search for the truth.
Currently, Harvard appears to be on a trajectory of seeking to 'right' certain wrongs from the past, using this report as a guide. What began in 2011 as an undergraduate course on researching slavery and Harvard's history has now officially morphed into a full-fledged self-flagellation campaign, where much of Harvard's past has been placed in the dock and is under condemnation through guilt by association or innuendo. What may have started out as a noble effort to get at the truth has since gone off the rails. This is unfortunate, since it did not have to be this way. A commitment to truth must look at the whole truth and provide context wherever possible. This report does not do that.
EarlyHarvard.com has prepared a series of podcasts critiquing the Harvard slavery report in an effort to bring these issues into sharper focus. These are available at the links below, along with accompanying PDFs with full documentation in support of each podcast.
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Podcast No. 1 - "The Harvard Slavery Report: Founded on Half-Truths & Distorted History"
Listen here:
Podcast No. 1 on "The Harvard Slavery Report" (27 minutes)
Article supporting Podcast No. 1 - Critique of the Harvard Slavery Report - Half-Truths & Distorted History
Podcast No. 2 - "How 'Woke Harvard' Corrupts Scholarship"
Listen here: Podcast No. 2 on "The Harvard Slavery Report" (12 minutes)
Article supporting Podcast No. 2 - "How 'Woke Harvard' Corrupts Scholarship"
Podcast No. 3 - "George Washington & Harvard: Where the Report Fails Miserably"
Listen here: Podcast No. 3 on "George Washington & Harvard: Where the Report Fails Miserably" (32 minutes)
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*Copyright 2019-2023 by A. J. Melnick. All rights reserved. This site is not affiliated with Harvard University nor any Harvard entity.