Liberal Harvard Groupthink Criticized By… Michael Bloomberg?

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is
infamous for his liberty-unfriendly views on
racial profiling,
gun control and
public health. But as the saying goes, even a broken, miserably
authoritarian clock is right twice a day.

Bloomberg, who delivered the commencement address to Harvard
University’s graduating class yesterday, harshly criticized the
climate of leftist indoctrination at Ivy
League campuses.

“There was more disagreement among the old Soviet
politburo than there is among Ivy League donors,” he said, noting
that 96 percent of Harvard faculty members and administrators
donated to President Obama’s re-election campaign.

Bloomberg warned that some campuses seem determined to
root out all dissenting views.

“Today on many college campuses, it is liberals trying to
oppress conservatives, even as conservative faculty members are in
danger of becoming an endangered species,” he said.

The dangers of groupthink at American universities have rarely
been more apparent. Over the past few weeks, intolerant students
and faculty at campus after campus have succeeded in their efforts
to shut down events featuring non-liberal viewpoints. Speakers from
all across the ideological spectrum suffered persecution, as long
as they subscribed to at least one opinion deemed unacceptable by
the forces of political correctness.

Predictably, some Harvard students opposed Bloomberg as a
commencement speaker, given his support for heavy-handed police
tactics and racial profiling.

“It’s unsettling to me, [for] someone to speak who advocates a
racist policy when you want students of color on campus to feel
comfortable,”
said Harvard junior Keyanna Wigglesworth in a statement to
CNN. “It’s confusing and I don’t think it’s what Harvard
stands for.”

This view that the emotional comfort of students is more
important than fostering a climate of open inquiry is disturbingly
common and even increasing,
according to a recent report by the Foundation for Individual
Rights in Education. FIRE President Greg Lukianoff wrote:

“FIRE has informally tracked disinvitation incidents for a long
time, but the attention paid to the problem this year because of
the prominence of the speakers at issue led us to systematically
evaluate the problem,” said FIRE President Greg Lukianoff. “The
data confirms what we and many others suspected: The desire to
silence speakers on campus is strong—and disturbingly,
‘disinvitations’ are becoming more common.”

More on
campus free speech battles here.