Lawrence Summers’s Critique of Harvard Doesn’t Go Far Enough

By Paul J. O’Reilly

Sunday, April 13, 2025

 

Lawrence Summers, former president of and current professor at Harvard University, recently published an article in the New York Times urging the elite universities, including Harvard, to stand up to the Trump administration’s threats to remove billions of dollars in funding — which is, of course, money taken from Americans in the form of taxes.

 

The article is worth reading because Summers acknowledges that critics are right to be distressed that the universities “continue to tolerate antisemitism in their midst,” “have elevated identity over excellence in the selection of students and faculty,” and “lack diversity of perspective and that they have repeatedly failed to impose discipline and maintain order.” Any reform, Summers points out, “will not happen through universities’ usual deliberative processes, which give too much power to faculty members who have political agendas.” Instead, “it will require strong, determined leaders backed by confident and competent trustees.”

 

Such candor is a sign that the elites are realizing they have failed us.

 

True reform of the dysfunctional higher-education institutions begins with a recognition of the causes that got us into this mess. Neither Israel’s response to the terror attack on October 7, nor the efforts of the Trump administration to identify waste in federal funding, are the causes of what ails American colleges and universities. Those are merely symptoms of decades-long intellectual decline.

 

Almost 40 years ago, Allan Bloom wrote a devastating criticism of the state of academia: The Closing of the American Mind. The book’s subtitle is a nice summary of its thesis: “How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students.”

 

In most places of higher education, there is no discussion of right and wrong that is connected to a moral vision rooted in truth. Rather, the language of right and wrong is replaced by “values,” which are judged based on cultural and personal preferences, rather than truth and falsehood. For example, are our students aware of Lincoln’s argument that there is no right to do a wrong? As Lincoln sees it, political rights must be based on judgments about an objective moral order.

 

In place of critical thinking and argumentation based on principles, academia has, by and large, indoctrinated its students. Just listen to any of the protesters, young and old, who have vandalized Tesla vehicles. Without any reflection on the merits of what they are doing or the reasons for their discontent, they are brazenly destroying their neighbors’ property. How many of these people have engaged with Socrates’ arguments that it is never right to do a wrong?

 

As Bloom put it: “The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable. . . It is not feelings or commitments that will render a man free, but thoughts, reasoned thoughts.” When academia becomes political and ideological, when the motto of Harvard — “Veritas,” meaning “truth” — is no longer the goal of deliberation and debate, then it is little wonder that faculty become doctrinaire, while students replace reason with passion. All the government funding will not make a difference at a university where truth and goodness are not pursued openly and without political bias.

 

Only from within the classroom will American higher education be restored. Let me propose three ways of improvement: (1) attend to what is taught in class; (2) consider the order in which it is taught; and (3) improve the manner by which it is taught.

 

First, instead of modern textbooks, students should encounter the wisdom of the centuries. Students will be educated if they have familiarity with Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and Dostoevsky. They should have read and debated the dialogues of Plato, the works of Aristotle, and, dare I say, Thomas Aquinas. To be familiar with Marx, Darwin, and Einstein will only mature the minds of the young. Students in America must read the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

 

Universities used to insist on a formation in what have been called the “Great Books.” Now, it looks like many of our citizens are unaware of the intellectual patrimony that makes us free to judge well about the most pressing matters of our time.

 

Second, it used to be widely understood that some things should be studied before others. Before one encounters Marx, one should be aware of Aristotle and Adam Smith, for example. The study of logic was considered a necessary step in the long road to wisdom. Thomas Aquinas has said that it belongs to the wise to put things in order. Careful attention must be given to what is studied first and what comes after. Otherwise, students will not have a secure foundation upon which to build their judgments.

 

Third, the method of teaching — not only what is assigned in the classroom, and the order of these assignments — needs reform. Instead of huge lecture halls where students passively receive the lecture, how about small classes where discussions and debates can make students active in their own learning? There should be no doubt that this would be a better way to learn.

 

The solution to this academic malaise is not to replace education with political indoctrination, nor logic with artificial intelligence, nor to replace the tried and true methods of learning with the latest fad. Real reform occurs when educators realize that they have impoverished the souls of today’s students. It is time to return to what made the elite universities great. Study the great books, in an intelligent order, in a manner that engages the minds of our students.