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 ver since tales
of campus political correctness started cropping up in the popular
press, the academic Left has
dismissed
stories of bias as mere anecdotes — odd exceptions to the tolerance
and even-handedness supposedly typical of today's colleges and universities.
Nothing could be further from the truth. For every case of political
correctness that makes it to the papers, a thousand others are hidden
from view. It takes a singular convergence of chance, credentials,
and courage for a story to see the light of day.
In exceptional cases, we find that a lone tale of egregious political
correctness opens a window onto the pervasive, often carefully hidden,
bias festering in today's academy. Last October, in an Op-Ed
for the Wall Street Journal, I exposed what seemed but a
single case of political correctness at Harvard University —
the rejection by Harvard University Press of Linda Waite and Maggie
Gallagher's superb new book, The
Case for Marriage. Four months later, it now looks like
dislodging one great obscuring rock at Harvard Press allowed the
sun to shine in on all manner of squirming, scampering mischief-makers.
When Harvard University Press, under highly unusual circumstances,
rejected The Case for Marriage, it claimed that the book
wasn't up to scholarly snuff. But the real sin of Waite and Gallagher
was to debunk feminist orthodoxy by showing that marriage is not
just another lifestyle choice, but the best available family arrangement.
Last fall I discovered that The Case For Marriage had received
two positive reviews by scholars commissioned to vet the book for
Harvard Press. One of those reviewers called the manuscript, "the
most important book in the family field that has been published
in many years." Ordinarily, two positive internal reviews are enough
to ensure publication. But in a rare step, The Case for Marriage
was torpedoed by the Harvard Press Board of Syndics at the eleventh
hour. In private documents, the board claimed that the book was
too harsh in tone and its evidence too meager.
That was a sham. The Case for Marriage is written in a calm,
laconic style that let's its carefully amassed scholarly evidence
speak for itself. And Harvard Press publishes books by the notorious
feminist Catherine MacKinnon that are shrill beyond precedent for
scholarly works. When MacKinnon isn't condemning all men as incipient
rapists, she's spinning out undocumented assertions about the link
between pornography and rape. Then there's literary critic Leo Bersani's
Harvard Press Book, Homos, which examines
| “Thousands
of books, and Harvard Press can find only one-and-a-half
that are credibly conservative.” |
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homosexual
sadomasochism and pederasty. Bersani's claim is that homosexuality
is inherently disruptive of society — and that this is a good
thing. How comes it then that The Case for Marriage, a model
of calm and cogent argumentation, backed up by carefully sifted
facts, should be rejected by the board of Harvard Press — after
receiving high praise from its own reviewers on grounds of harsh
tone and meager evidence? Tone and evidence had nothing to do with
the case. Waite and Gallagher successfully exposed the fallacy of
the Press's anti-family orthodoxy, so their book had to go.
That was the story last fall. But we're now beginning to learn more
about bias at Harvard Press. After my Op-Ed appeared, the Boston
Globe ran a story on the controversy. Harvard Press refused
to explain its decision to ax The Case for Marriage, but
Press spokesman Mary Kate Maco rejected my claim that the book was
nixed for political reasons. After all, she said, Harvard Press
publishes many conservative authors, like Richard Posner, Cass Sunstein,
and Abigail Thernstrom. One problem. Cass Sunstein isn't conservative.
Sunstein is a prominent liberal, lately famous as a signatory, along
with Rosie O'Donnell, of a much-criticized full-page ad, during
the Florida election battle, backing Gore's position on the recount.
Richard Posner is certainly a brilliant and a worthy conservative,
but of the libertarian variety. His support of gay rights and his
sharp criticism of traditionalists like Gertrude Himmelfarb hardly
prove that Harvard Press is willing to publish social conservatives.
So, out of a booklist of thousands, Harvard Press comes up with
a total of one-and-a-half conservative books one of its examples
being patently bogus. Could anything be more revealing of Harvard
Press's overwhelming political bias?
It gets worse. Only last week Harvard's student newspaper, the Crimson,
ran a story on the controversy over The Case for Marriage.
This time Harvard University Press trotted out fresh proof of its
supposed openness to conservatism. The Press proudly proclaimed
that it had once published a book by Harvard professor, Harvey Mansfield.
Yes, Harvey
"C minus" Mansfield, that famous battler against affirmative
action and grade inflation. So there! How dare anyone claim that
a broad-minded institution like Harvard University Press is biased
against conservatives.
Ah, but the Crimson hadn't noticed an extraordinary story
on this controversy by Village Voice columnist Norah Vincent.
Actually, very few people noticed that story, because it was released
on election day. In the article, Vincent, who once worked for Harvard
University Press, made a devastating case against Harvard's claims
of fairness. For one thing, Vincent turned up two new examples of
alleged political bias against conservative authors by the Press.
And one of them was…you guessed it, Harvey "C minus" Mansfield.
Twenty three years ago, Harvard Press published a short book on
political theory by Mansfield. But just a couple years ago, Harvard
Press rejected Mansfield's proposal to complete a book on manliness.
And Mansfield learned from someone at the Press, whom he refused
to name, that his book proposal had been rejected "because it was
thought or found to be anti-feminist." So now Harvard Press's fourth
specimen of its willingness to publish conservatives turns out not
just to be bogus, but to be a parade example of the very bias the
Press is being accused of.
It gets worse still. Vincent also revealed that Harvard Press, despite
glowing internal reviews, had rejected a manuscript critical of
both feminism and postmodernism by a young untenured professor named
Peter Berkowitz. Vincent noted that Berkowitz' first book for Harvard
Press had won an award, and that his rejected second manuscript
was later published by prestigious Princeton Press. This story is
particularly interesting because Berkowitz has been involved for
some time in a high-stakes lawsuit against Harvard for rejecting
his tenure application. Many argue that Harvard's rejection was
caused by bias against Berkowitz's moderately conservative views.
Even a far from conservative, but fair-minded writer like Norah
Vincent, who herself once worked for Harvard Press, argues that
the Press list is "heavily weighted toward radicals." And Vincent
wisely points to the case of Carol Gilligan, the renowned feminist
author published by Harvard Press. Whatever you think of them, Gilligan's
arguments are important and deserve publication. But the poor quality
of Gilligan's empirical research was brilliantly exposed by Christina
Hoff Sommers in her recent book, The
War Against Boys. In fact, Gilligan's quantitative work
has long been known among empirical researchers for its thinness
and unreliability. How then, can Harvard Press repeatedly publish
Gilligan's poorly documented feminist polemics while castigating
a thoroughly documented work like The Case for Marriage as
shrill and unsupported?
No one at Harvard Press, other than its media-relations officer,
would talk either to me, the Boston Globe, or The Village
Voice. But the Crimson's gutsy student reporter, Frances
Tilney,
managed to reach William P. Sisler, the head of Harvard Press,
at his home. Trapped by an actual Harvard student, Sisler had to
say something, so he simply repeated the claim that The Case
for Marriage was second rate and not worth publishing. How does
that square with an enthusiastic review by James Q. Wilson (in National
Review), perhaps the most esteemed political scientist of his
generation and a long-time professor at Harvard University?
Last week's Crimson story makes it clear that Harvard is
still stonewalling — and still making bogus claims of broad-mindedness.
It turns out that The Case for Marriage was only the
tip of the iceberg. And remember, Vincent's newly identified cases
only represent those with the guts and credentials to go public.
What about the young conservative scholars who never get to have
academic careers in the first place? What about those who are rejected
before attaining the stature needed to prove that they've been wronged?
Thousands of books, and Harvard Press can find only one-and-a-half
that are credibly conservative.
My
claim still stands. Like so much of today's elite academy, Harvard
University Press, having abandoned classic liberal traditions of
fairness, has been corrupted by a profound bias against anyone who
dares challenge the cultural radicalism it habitually favors.
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