Until the university decides to take on viewpoint diversity seriously, the faculty’s concerns about external pressure will continue to ring hollow.
C onservative faculty are almost impossible to find at Harvard, and that absence has created a warped, often anti-intellectual, climate on campus. In response to the intense (and deserved) political and legal pressure the administration is applying to Harvard — particularly with regard to the presence of campus antisemitism and of a progressive, activist faculty intolerant of other views — there is now talk of Harvard’s creating a conservative center on campus to promote viewpoint diversity and fend off these concerns.
According to a university spokesperson, this center would, theoretically, “ensure exposure to the broadest ranges of perspectives on issues, and will not be partisan, but rather will model the use of evidence-based, rigorous logic and a willingness to engage with opposing views.”
It’s a nice idea — but it’s wishful thinking, at best. Even if this center were well-funded, prominently placed, and impeccably organized, it would do little to change Harvard’s dominant, liberal monoculture. This is the same culture that approved of pro-Hamas faculty occupying and disrupting Harvard’s main library; that supported faculty publicly declaring that antisemitism investigations into Harvard are a form of authoritarian extortion that must be resisted at all costs.
At best, a conservative center could offer a limited forum for dialogue — if nonconservative faculty and students are willing to engage. It might also provide a haven for intellectually curious students seeking space to dissent. But unless Harvard is willing to confront the ideological homogeneity of its faculty, such a center will function more like a controlled release valve than a transformative engine of reform.
When I was a student at Harvard, certain questions were simply off-limits. I didn’t come from the right demographic, hold the expected priors, or lean far enough left. Entire lines of inquiry — about education, family, religion, citizenship — were implicitly closed. That culture hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s calcified.
Harvard’s faculty remain unable — or unwilling — to recognize that the real threat to academic freedom is not political pressure from the outside. It’s the ideological rigidity on the inside. Unless a conservative center somehow reforms the faculty balance, changes the curriculum, and alters a culture that silences dissent and limits what can be questioned, little will actually change on campus.
Consider that Harvard faculty are only now raising the alarm about threats to academic freedom. In their minds, rather than recognizing that the problems on campus have come from their own behavior, the outside world is to blame.
In a recent, imperfect survey of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences conducted by the Harvard Crimson, 85 percent of faculty said “pressure from the government” was the greatest threat to academic freedom at Harvard. Sixty-three percent said “self-censorship” and 57 percent said “pressure from donors.” Only 32 percent and 25 percent of faculty, respectively, claimed “intolerance among faculty” and “lack of ideological diversity among faculty” were threats to academic freedom at Harvard.
The faculty’s disconnection from reality is staggering. Faculty can admit that self-censorship is an issue, but few are willing to say why, or to name the internal culture that has long made dissent so difficult. Instead, the academy will point to external actors: donors and lawmakers. But that’s not what has driven free inquiry into retreat over the past two decades. The driving force has been the rise of a campus culture that prizes moral certainty over intellectual risk-taking and ideological uniformity over academic pluralism.
A 2023 FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) survey ranked Harvard dead last — 248th out of 248 colleges — for campus free speech, awarding it a score of 0.00 out of 100. The survey, which drew on tens of thousands of student responses nationwide, highlighted widespread self-censorship, pressure to conform, and the near impossibility of expressing heterodox views. These results had nothing to do with congressional hearings or outside funding. They had everything to do with internal norms and expectations.
Even fields that were once less ideologically fraught are now caught in the same web of censorship. Take climate policy. Scholars who investigate politically inconvenient topics — such as the limits of renewable energy mandates, the role of nuclear power, or the consequences of rushed net-zero targets — often find themselves marginalized. A 2022 Breakthrough Institute report documented how researchers working on carbon capture and geoengineering struggled to secure grants or institutional support, not because their work lacked scientific merit, but because it didn’t align with the dominant political narrative.
These are not isolated incidents. They reflect a pattern in which academic institutions — especially the most elite — have internalized a set of ideological filters that shape what can be studied, how it can be framed, and who is permitted to lead the conversation.
As such, it’s hard to take seriously the idea that donors or government oversight are the central threats to academic freedom today. Certainly, they can pose risks. But the deeper, more corrosive danger lies in the unwillingness of faculty and administrators to recognize that Harvard has, for years, been limiting debate from within.
This unwillingness is visible not just in survey results but in institutional behavior. In 2024, the dean of social science at Harvard, Lawrence D. Bobo, argued that faculty who publicly criticize their institution should face sanctions. Bobo’s ridiculous position fundamentally undermines both academic freedom and Harvard’s sacred mission to seek truth. It reflects a troubling politicization of academic governance, where scholarly dissent is interpreted as misconduct. As I wrote previously, “instead of recognizing that Harvard is under intense scrutiny and suffering a reputational crisis because it has proven itself to be morally and intellectually corrupt, Professor Bobo thinks the way to restore calm to campus is to weaken the academic freedom of Harvard’s faculty even further.”
Many departments and hiring committees have quietly adopted ideological screening mechanisms, favoring scholars whose work aligns with prevailing assumptions on race, gender, and global justice. This is not a defense of truth-seeking. It is a narrowing of the academic mission.
Faculty claim to be afraid. But their fear comes not from students with protest signs or congressional letters. Their fear stems from the possibility that the university might, finally, be held to account. For too long, elite institutions have insisted that they are the last guardians of reason, even as they punished dissent and rewarded ideological loyalty.
If Harvard truly wants to protect academic freedom, it must begin by acknowledging that the threat to its mission has come from within. The university must create protections for heterodox thinkers. It must rethink hiring and promotion systems that reward conformity. It must encourage debate, not just within the safe lanes of consensus, but across the full range of contested issues in American life.
Fortunately, the Trump administration agrees. The press has reported that “the White House would see the creation of the center as a performative gesture rather than a meaningful concession in ongoing negotiations.” A conservative center should not be a bargaining chip, for it cannot address the systemic ills that plague our nation’s oldest college.
A conservative center will not fix a systemically biased culture. Until Harvard decides to take viewpoint diversity and student safety seriously, the faculty’s concerns about external pressure will continue to ring hollow.