Mansfield's Comments Not Worth the Effort

To the editors:

I have been at Harvard as an undergraduate and graduate student, and this is not the first time that I have been offended by the divisive comments of Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield '53 (News, "BSA Up in Arms After Mansfield Comment," Feb. 12).

But after six years, I have no speeches or intellectual response. I am just absolutely sick of hearing about Mansfield and of the warm feeling of bile that seeps into my stomach every time I hear about his unsubstantiated statements. Where is his evidence?

The very worst part is that the Black Students Association (BSA) sit-in and the letter they are writing are exact mirror events of what happened in 1996, when Mansfield responded to President Neil L. Rudenstine's report on diversity.

The names and graduation years and Mansfield stay the same. The only thing that changes is the cohorts of black students who waste time and effort on this man.

I have some anecdotal evidence of my own. Maybe we black students offend because we devote extra intellectual effort responding to Mansfield.

Jason B. Phillips '99

Feb. 12, 2001

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Censure the Wrong Response to Statements

To the editors:

I was dismayed to read Prof. Mansfield's speculations as to the relation between race-based admissions and grade inflation at Harvard. His comments were utterly unsupported and brazenly hurtful, and deserve our unqualified disdain.

However, I was even more dismayed to learn that the BSA has responded by calling for an official University censure. While their decision to actively protest Mansfield's lectures was laudable, we should all remember that, when it is delivered from official hands to squash heterodox opinion, "censureship" is censorship. In houses of learning, we resolve disagreements through the public exchange of ideas--not by administrative decree.

Shlomi Sher '01

Feb. 12, 2001

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What Mansfield Meant

To the editors:

It seems that the comments Mansfield makes are simply not understood by those who attack him. He is quoted as saying, "White professors were unwilling to give black students C's to avoid giving them a rough welcome [in the early 1970s]. At the same time they didn't give C's to white students to be fair."

That hardly implies anything about all black students. It seems the only way to make sense of that comment is as something along the lines of "white professors were unwilling to give C's to those black students who deserved C's. To be fair, they couldn't continue to give C's to white students with the same performance." It is completely unclear how this, as one student in the article claims, "discredit[s] the efforts of African-Americans who came [to Harvard] and worked so hard."

Rather, Mansfield's comment says that the grades that some of the black students received were inflated, as were the grades of many white students, since grades were inflated generally. The source of this problem is conceived of as white professors' unwillingness to give some students the grades that they deserved. It seems clear that Mansfield's statement, then, is a censure of white professors in the 1970s, as he claims it is.

What bothers and confuses me is that this statement is being met with such a negative reaction. If what Mansfield had actually intended is offensive, then it would make sense to be upset about that.

However, it seems that the negative student reaction is aimed at something that is not quite what Mansfield said--some sort of mental construction that contorts Mansfield's words and attributes to him a position that he does not and did not take.

Why, then, do the students involved attribute this view to Mansfield? Is it because they have just not taken the time to understand his statement, or do they have some sort of reason to particularly dislike him? Are they simply looking to be offended? Or is there something entirely different at work here that I have missed?

Those who would so viciously attack Mansfield and call for a university censure owe the campus a more coherent account of what they take Mansfield to have said, how they derive this interpretation from the words that he uttered, and why what they take him to have said makes him worthy of censure.

Ari Weinstein '02

Feb. 12, 2000