‘For now, a better hope lies in building new institutions unencumbered by the corruption and self-hatred that infect the old,’ professor wrote

A longtime Harvard University professor has penned an essay that outs the institution for, among other things, rejecting brilliant minds because they’re white males, as well as no long supporting a curriculum that teaches the virtues of Western Civilization.

History Professor James Hankins in his piece for Compact titled “Why I am Leaving Harvard,” explains that his decision after working at the Ivy League institution for 40 years comes after watching his place of employment devolve on many levels:

In reviewing graduate student applicants in the fall of 2020 I came across an outstanding prospect who was a perfect fit for our program. In past years this candidate would have risen immediately to the top of the applicant pool. In 2021, however, I was told informally by a member of the admissions committee that “that” (meaning admitting a white male) was “not happening this year.” In the same year a certifiably brilliant undergraduate I had tutored, who was literally the best student at Harvard—he won the prize for the graduating senior with the best overall academic record—was rejected from all the graduate programs to which he applied. He too was a white male. I called around to friends at several universities to find out why on earth he had been rejected. Everywhere it was the same story: Graduate admissions committees around the country had been following the same unspoken protocol as ours. The one exception I found to the general exclusion of white males had begun life as a female. 

Hankins also wrote about the embrace of globalism at Harvard. As reported by Real Clear Politics:

We have not hired with tenure a historian in a Western field — ancient, medieval, early modern, or modern — in a decade,” Hankins says about his Harvard department, which in that time “lost eight senior historians in Western fields — all major figures — through death, retirement or departure for other universities. I will be the ninth, and I am not expecting to be replaced.”

The loss isn’t just Harvard’s: “the replacement of Western history by global history” has done “serious harm … to the socialization of young Americans,” the historian warns in Compact magazine.

“When you don’t teach the young what civilization is, it turns out, people become uncivilized.”

In the 40 years Hankins taught at Harvard, he saw his profession shift its focus from European civilization to cultures once considered barbarian:

“In this absurdist rendering of world history, Central Asian peoples,” for example, “are presented as the drivers of cultural innovation, spreading their benign influence east and west via the Silk Road.”

This is marketed as “‘de-centering the West,’ where Western countries are literally put in their place as an ugly growth on the back side of Eurasia.”

Hankins also criticized Harvard’s overzealous COVID restrictions, the New York Post reported: “Hankins said his decision to retire also had to do with the university’s ‘tyrannous invasions of private life’ with its COVID-19 restrictions. Professors were forced to lecture in masks and give seminars on Zoom — neither of which ‘accorded with my idea of liberal education.'”

Hankins is now a visiting professor at the University of Florida’s Hamilton School of Classical and Civic Education.

“The reason why is that the Hamilton School is committed to teaching the history of Western civilization. When late liberal pedagogy replaced Western civilization courses with global history, serious harm was done to the socialization of young Americans. When you don’t teach the young what civilization is, it turns out, people become uncivilized,” he wrote in his Compact essay.

“…For now, a better hope lies in building new institutions unencumbered by the corruption and self-hatred that infect the old.”

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