An Explanation for the Madness
An example of pop-science gone awry, but suddenly, Harvard’s student body and its predilection to produce leaders seems much more clear.
Post Tagged with: "Harvard Students"
An Admissions Lottery?
In today’s Crimson, Dylan Matthews has a provocative column arguing that Harvard ought to randomize its admissions process. Dylan claims that Harvard’s current admissions system entrenches existing inequalities—including inequalities of talent. Talent, Dylan thinks, is pretty much beyond our control. Channeling John Rawls, Dylan assumes that success in life shouldn’t be “contingent” on “arbitrary factors” like genetic gifts, parental vigilance, [...]
Review of “Waiting for Superman”
This column originally appeared in the Oct. 14 Harvard Independent. Also see Adam’s post yesterday on this subject. This weekend I saw Davis Guggenheim’s documentary, Waiting for Superman, an arresting look at the American public education system and the lives of five precocious children whom it lets down. Guggenheim, whose previous works include An Inconvenient Truth and Barack Obama’s campaign-capping [...]
Marty Peretz, the Harvard Crimson, and Anti-Muslim Hysteria
I was disappointed to read The Crimson’s editorial this morning regarding Martin Peretz and the Harvard research fellowship that is apparently going to be endowed in his name. Peretz, the editor-in-chief of The New Republic, recently wrote on his personal blog that “Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims” and that he could not “pretend that [Muslim-Americans] are worthy [...]
An Assault on the Defense of Manliness
Sometimes the only way to properly criticize someone with ridiculous views is to quote them at length, and then, channeling Seth and Amy from “Saturday Night Live,” say with as much surprise and disdain as one can muster, “Really?!” I found myself saying “Really?!” a lot this morning when I read Rachel Wagley’s “defense of manliness” in the Harvard Crimson. [...]
Good and Bad Arguments for “Discrimination” against Muslims
HPR staff writer Eli Martin has a piece in today’s Crimson criticizing European “Islamophobia.” I don’t want to baldly disagree with Eli that “outright discrimination toward Muslims in Europe is becoming a reality.” But I do want to complicate things a bit. Eli implies that burqa bans and the like could only be products of Geert Wilders-esque prejudice, neglecting a [...]
Not Victims: Another Case Against the Clubs
I want to comment on Sam’s final club post from the other day, which I find compelling but nevertheless insufficient. Let me try to explain why. Sam gives us the standard-line “progressive critique” of the clubs. His is an argument that’s been made many times before — by the likes of April Yee here, Sabrina Lee here, and most recently by [...]
Serfs Up! Unpaid Interns and the Culture of Dependence
I’m posting the column that was scheduled to run in this week’s Harvard Independent… until the issue was canceled. This is an elaboration of my views on the unpaid internship debate, which has been a hot topic on the HPRgument lately. See Max’s initial post and my response. Serfs Up! – Unpaid Interns and the Culture of Dependence The Obama [...]
Why do Harvard kids head to Wall Street? Because they want to, that’s why
Ezra Klein has a balanced, sympathetic interview with an anonymous Harvard grad (history and political philosophy, my kind of guy/girl) who worked for Goldman Sachs after being recruited at Harvard. The key paragraph, the one that allows Ezra to suggest that the Ivy-Wall St. pipeline is not all about following the money, is this one: Investment banking was never something [...]
Final Clubs and Gender Relations
In today’s Harvard Crimson, Daniel Herz-Roiphe has written an unusually articulate, well-argued entry in the perennial “Why Final Clubs Are Still Really Bad” essay contest. I’m glad he focused on gender discrimination and inequality, rather than also trying to tackle racial, hetero-normative, and class-based elitism. Those other forms of discrimination are equally important, but I think they’re pretty low-hanging fruit. [...]
Weighing In: Are Interns Slaves?
In dueling editorials, two sets of Crimson editors opined today on the federal crack-down on unpaid internships. I’m with the pro-payment crowd, but I think that both the sides made the same conceptual error by assuming that this is a straightforward case of equality versus opportunity. The majority view was that, even though stricter regulation “might result in fewer internship [...]
Lead the HPR’s Summer Pilot Project
The HPR is looking for TWO PAID, PART-TIME EDITORS to lead a web-based project this summer. (Harvard undergrads only) The editors will lead a team of writers, graphic designers, web designers, and business staffers in putting together a special online edition of the Harvard Political Review in partnership with the Annual Report of the United States. The content will consist [...]
Do Democrats Need to Get Religion?
Raul Carrillo has a column in today’s Crimson arguing that Democrats need to become better at the “politics of spirituality.” Such exhortations often contain an ambiguity, and Carillo’s is no exception. Is he criticizing liberals on substantive grounds, i.e. for their support for separation of church and state and their “neutral stance on issues of faith”? Or is he just [...]
An Embarrassment to Harvard Conservatives
In case you aren’t sick of the subject, I have written a full-length take-down of the recent Harvard Salient article on Ethnic Studies. It originally appeared in today’s Harvard Independent. Check out my HPR blog post from last week if you want the pithier, more sarcastic version. An Embarrassment to Harvard Conservatives Harvard conservatives, those Aristotle-citing, modernity-bemoaning, Western canon-promoting Young [...]
