(cc photo b dan4th)

More exciting adventures from the Ivy League:

[Martin] Peretz, the editor in chief of The New Republic and a former Harvard professor, had been scheduled to speak at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies, scheduled for Sept. 25, according to the Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper. But the final schedule for the program does not list Peretz as a speaker. He is to be recognized, however, along with several other head tutors and directors of studies. [...]

An undergraduate research endowment fund in Peretz’s name was created recently by his family and friends, according to the Crimson, which also said that the fund’s proposed amount had increased from $500,000 to $650,000 in the last week from alumni contributions. The growth has been interpreted as an indication of alumni support to honor Peretz at the program.

I’m glad to see an enhanced level of attention being given to the fact that a semi-important figure in American political journalism is driven by racist views of Arabs and Muslims, as I’ve said before this whole farce mostly illustrates the absurd racket of fundraising at already-rich American universities. The Harvard business model is the exchange of money for prestige, and insofar as Peretz has rich friends willing to pony up cash Harvard is willing to bestow honors. If it becomes a problem, they may try to sweep it under the rug by, e.g., changing the speaker’s roster. But not accepting the cash isn’t on the menu, nor is refusing the perform the service in exchange for which the cash has been offered.

It’s true, of course, that well-intentioned Harvard donors could probably change things by threatening to withhold future contributions unless the honor is rescinded. But that would be a bit silly since people shouldn’t be giving Harvard money anyway. By the same token, the individuals responsible for establishing the Peretz Fund should consider putting their views of Peretz, Muslims, and all the rest to one side and asking whether an undergraduate research fund is a reasonable way of helping people. Are there no educational institutions in the world more in need of funds? Really?

Canaday Common Room entrance, former home of The Harvard Independent (my photo, available under cc license)

I realized dimly that New Republic editor in chief Martin Peretz had apologized for his suggestion that Muslims should be denied first amendment rights. But until reading Tracy Jan’s Boston Globe article on the continuing controversy, I hadn’t noticed that he specifically reaffirmed his view that “Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims.”

This is relevant because in edition to being editor in chief of a fairly important DC political magazine, he’s scheduled to be honored by Harvard University since a lot of his famous and important friends got together a bunch of money to give to Harvard in exchange for Harvard honoring their friend. Since Harvard is in the business of raising money, they have every intention of keeping the money and going ahead with the honoring:

Harvard yesterday said it does not plan to block the honor of Peretz, who received his doctorate from Harvard. In a statement yesterday, university officials acknowledged that Peretz’s recent assertions have been “distressing to many members of our community, and understandably so.” But the statement also declared that “it is central to the mission of a university to protect and affirm free speech, including the rights of Dr. Peretz, as well as those who disagree with him, to express their views.’’

“We are ultimately stronger as a university when we maintain our commitment to the most basic freedoms that enable the robust exchange of ideas,” the statement said.

It’s really too bad that Harvard has chosen to take this tack. Obviously the only person in this conversation who’s questioned anybody’s right to “free speech” or exhibited a weak “commitment to the most basic freedoms” is Peretz himself. Equally obviously, Peretz’s right to be a bigot does not create a right to be honored by prestigious universities. My alma mater is doing a disservice to their brand and to public understanding of the issues by deliberately obscuring things in this manner.

It would be more honest to say that Harvard is a business run for the benefit of its faculty and administrators. The business model of this business is the exchange of prestige in exchange for money. Peretz has friends who have money that they are willing to exchange for some prestige, and Harvard intends to take the money. It is what it is.

As an alum, I’d like to pretend to believe that I find this particular transaction outrageous, but it merely goes to illustrate a point I’ve made before. If you’re a person of some means who wants to make a charitable donation to make the world a better place you have a lot of options available to you. And one of the very worst things you could do with that money is give it to a fancy university. If you’ve specifically decided that you want to make a charitable donation to a provider of education services in the United States, you should find one that has a good track record of serving poor students. There are plenty of charter schools and colleges that fit the bill, but none of them are famous fancy schools with multi-billion dollar endowments.

The proper reason to give money to Harvard is the reason Peretz’s friends are giving money. The guy has a deservedly bad reputation in many quarters, and in exchange for money Harvard University is willing to try to raise his reputation.

I’ll admit that I’ve really slacked off in terms of reading New Republic editor-in-chief Martin Peretz’s blog. And now that I have a chance to glance at it, I think he’s deliberately being dumb to keep me on my toes. For example, yesterday he wrote “Imagine for a moment that the United States has mounted an attack on Mexico or Cuba, truly an unimaginable act.”

Unimaginable indeed. Except the United States has invaded both Mexico and Cuba in the past, multiple times each. Indeed, at this very day the United States maintains a large military installation on Cuban soil despite the objections of the Cuban government. And that installation is the legacy of decades of colonial domination of Cuba by the United States. And when America’s preferred proxy ruler of Cuba was overthrown by a new dictator, we tried several times to overthrow his government — once sponsoring an invasion — and have subjected the country to a devastating embargo for decades in an effort to keep him out of power.

Now nothing in America’s fairly long history of shabby acts toward our “near abroad” comes close to justifying Russia’s bad actions in its near abroad. But they do provide the necessary context of fairly banal great power politics rather than terrifying and unprecedented expansionism.