“[Women] are naturally more modest both sexually and in other ways than men,” he says. “This makes it easier for them to sit back, watch and judge—women are closer to philosophy than to politics in the sense that they observe and judge.”

But Mansfield says the successful integration of women into Harvard shows that women are not inferior to men intellectually.

“The change at Harvard that took place has to be qualified by the fact that there is a great deal of overlap between the two sexes that permits them to study together,” he says.

While many faculty members have disagreed with Mansfield’s gender theories, it is his racial slant on grade inflation and affirmative action that has drawn the most Faculty and student ire and national media attention in recent years.

Mansfield attributes the rise in Harvard’s grades to a fall in expectations, brought on by the influx of less academically qualified black students in the 1970s. His argument is that white professors, afraid that they would be seen as racist, gave black students high grades they didn’t deserve.

“I think it’s an issue that goes to the heart of the University, especially the morale of the University,” Mansfield says. “If we believe in ourselves as an educational institution we must subordinate questions of social justice to that which is best for education.”

Part of what has made Mansfield such a celebrity on campus is not the substance of his conservative views, but his willingness to spout them without tact.

Mansfield himself says he often means “to offend” and his battle is not against women, or blacks, or even Communists, but against the political correctness of the University that he has called home for much of his life.

“Political correctness exists in the assumption that most people are of the left,” he says. “When I saw this in operation at Harvard, I started talking at Faculty meetings. I just couldn’t stand there and listen to people assume that everybody was liberal.”

The C is for Comfortable

Mansfield’s strong conservative rhetoric has often made him the outsider in the Faculty—and even solidified Faculty opposition against him at times.

“What he does is establish such a strong position on the right that he consolidates the people on the right more than they ordinarily would be,” Verba says.

But while it may seem that Mansfield’s views have made him a pariah on campus, the unconventional conservative professor has found a home in Harvard.

Sitting in his small office on the second floor of the Littauer building, Mansfield looks out his window at the gray sky, his head resting on the back of his left hand.

Mansfield has resided in this office for 30 years, since he was named chair of the government department in 1973. The walls are decorated with pictures of Machiavelli and John Locke, as well as two framed certificates, signed by George Bush and Ronald Reagan.