In today’s Pope Center piece, Russ Nieli writes about a new, hefty book on the history of higher education in America by Professor Roger Geiger. Nieli, who has written a paper for us on this subject finds much to ponder in Geiger’s book and focuses his piece on the conflict between academic merit and other objectives that increasingly preoccupy higher education leaders.

Nieli finds Harvard president James B. Conant to be especially interesting. During his long tenure, Harvard began to offer generous scholarships to bright students from poorer families, placed more weight on objective exams (especially the SAT) and less on subjective factors and interviews, and practiced an early sort of “affirmative action” by encouraging students from regions of the U.S. other than the northeast to apply. But on the other hand, the university continued the policy established under Conant’s predecessor (A. Lawrence Lowell) of putting a limit on the number of Jewish students, a policy intended to protect the Harvard “image” in the minds of traditionalists.

Nevertheless, Harvard (and other leading institutions) were far more interested in rewarding academic merit than they are today. They have embraced the “diversity” crusade and try to defend their new policies with the feeble claim that “the value of increased diversity of more ‘under-represented minorities’ on campus is supposed a legitimate part of their merit.” Nieli doesn’t buy that claim and says, correctly I think, that most of the public doesn’t either. He also points to the unhappy consequence of the diversity crusade that it leads to “heightened self-segregation on campus.”

Nieli also observes that respect for free speech and debate on American campuses has notably declined over time. Conant once praised Harvard for its tradition of academic freedom and tolerance for heresy. If he were around today, he would have to revise his position.