Harvard University president Drew Faust announced Tuesday that the University will lay off nearly 275 workers in the next seven business days. Previously famous for boasting the world’s largest endowment fund, Harvard Management Co. lost 22 percent of its value last year and is projected to reach a 30 percent drop by the end of this month. Yet there may be a silver lining to Harvard’s financial meltdown, as budget cuts have ushered in a reordering of institutional priorities.

Most notably, administrators appear slightly less inclined to cow to the army of political correctness that usually occupies Harvard Yard. Last month, Harvard University Health Services announced it would end anonymous HIV testing, which is an expensive resource to maintain, as well as underused. In the future, students will still be able to have confidential HIV testing, but the results will appear in their medical files. In a statement that was uncharacteristically brazen for a Harvard administrator, director Dr. David Rosenthal sensibly noted that he didn’t think this would be a problem, since very few people ought to need anonymous testing. “What kind of person needs an HIV test?” Rosenthal asked a group of outraged students, according to an account that later circulated via e-mail. “Promiscuous.”

Last week, a similar flap occurred when administrators revealed that the university would be closing the Office of Sexual Assault, Prevention, and Response (OSAPR) for the month of July, but would maintain other outlets for students reporting crimes of sexual assault or rape. OSAPR’s director despaired that this would be particularly problematic since the summer months are the time the office reserves for planning new programs.

If anyone’s wondering what sort of programs she means, just review some of the office’s previous calendars. In 2007, OSAPR co-sponsored a program aimed at college freshmen entitled, “Hooking Up: Hot Hints for a Great Sex Life,” which promised “sexy and scintillating talk” while troubleshooting bedroom issues. Later that year, the office sponsored an event entitled, “Choose Your Own Sex Adventure,” which encouraged students to collectively think through a hypothetical hook-up scenario (the scenario ended with the question of what color condom to choose).

Much outrage has followed announcements of Harvard’s decisions to cut anonymous testing and suspend OSAPR. A lecturer in the Women and Gender Studies Committee organized a May “test-in” at Harvard University Health Services in which students ate pizza and donned red ribbons to protest the end of anonymous testing. News of OSAPR’s hiatus has sparked accusations that Harvard is not providing sufficient resources to victims.

That Harvard appears to be standing its ground on these fronts despite the outrage is both surprising and refreshing. Heather Mac Donald wrote earlier this year of how Harvard’s archrival, Yale, appears to be following the opposite strategy in coping with a down market. Despite a series of budget cuts and a similarly collapsing endowment, Yale has moved forward in its plans to inaugurate the Office of LGBTQ Relations.

Budget cuts are rarely pleasant, but if a side effect is that a few of Harvard’s typically lavished social activists have to sweat a little, that might make a shrinking endowment worth it.