Harvard's Commencement Speech of Doom

Why Harvard is having trouble standing up to the Trump assault

It was somehow appropriate that Harvard’s President Allen Garber picked a doctor and popular author Abraham Verghese to deliver the commencement address at Harvard on May 29 on the occasion of the greatest crisis in American history. As ICE is being transformed into a secret police force that reports to billionaires through Donald Trump with zero accountability, as all non-citizens are subject to arbitrary arrest, and as Harvard and other universities are subject to strict control by Homeland Security and other security services with regards to research, teaching, and the activities of students and faculty, including an unprecedented freeze on student visas for Havard, and extended, possibly, to all foreign students, the world was expecting Harvard to take a brave stand-and the media was leading us to think that somehow Garber would play such a heroic role.

But the selection of this canned and media-savvy TV doctor Abraham Verghese, a man who had shamelessly promoted the COVID-19 scam from the start, appearing on Oprah,

and elsewhere, and even launched a disgusting program entitled “Our Pandemic Story” which gave a multicultural and empowering spin to biomedical fascism

as the voice for Harvard speaking out against the Trump administration’s totalitarianism revealed the deep rot beneath the ivy league. Harvard is a toy of Wall Street. It is backed by different billionaires than those who back Trump, but it is basically dancing to the tune dictated by investment bankers.

For that reason, I could not help but groan when Verghese, after telling an inspiring tale of how he had gone from being a poor foreign student to being an overpaid and overpromoted servant to corporate power, then give a lecture about truth that set him as the brave opposition to the MAGA Trumpers. He declared,

“A cascade of draconian government measures has already led to so much uncertainty, so much pain, and suffering in this country and across the globe—and more has been threatened.

The outrage you must feel, the outrage so many feel, also must surely leads us to a new appreciation. Appreciation for the rule of law and due process, which till now we took for granted—because this is America after all!

And appreciation for those committed to truth—’veritas’--at a time when the absence of truth has come to feel almost normal. We find new appreciation of actions that demonstrate thoughtfulness, decency, generosity, kindness, humility, and service to community.”

Yes “Veritas” the truth, should be the calling of Harvard. Unfortunately, both Garber and Verghese, experts in medicine, have their arms up to the elbows in the blood of our citizens for their backing of the Covid Reign of terror, and their forcing deadly vaccines for a bogus pandemic on students, and using the authority of their universities, Harvard and Stanford, to promote a massive medical fraud unprecedented in history.

I personally think it would have been more valuable if we could have had someone, anyone, take a real stand against the corporate fascism that has been creeping over the US over the last thirty years at Harvard. But corporate fascism has been winding its tendrils around Harvard. The 54 billion in the Havard endowment, and Harvard brand, have became more valuable than truth. Maybe that is why former President Drew Faust joined the board of directors of Goldman Sachs when she retired?

If we are talking about education at Harvard, it would be helpful to go back to the report “General Education in a Free Society” issued by Harvard President James B. Conant in 1945 which gives some serious proposals for what education should be.

The speech by Verghese was full of empty praise for the greatness of Harvard that completely overlooks the profound weakening of academic standards at Harvard, the increased power of corporations, and the emergence of class as a determining factor. It is no longer possible to get into Harvard on the basis of merit alone.

These days, admissions are determined by money more than ability and the files of students admitted are tagged based on potential to be a donor in the future (or parents as current donors).

I worked closely with former Dean of Arts and Sciences Henry Rosovsky (whom I interviewed here) and he helped me establish a program at Asia Institute. I also worked with Dean Jeremy Knowles. These were two thoughtful scholars who cared about education. They are much missed at this sad hour.