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The Mess at Harvard
First, the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government invites a former intelligence officer for the US army who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to prison for thirty-five years to become a Fellow of the Institute. The man’s qualification? He thinks that he is a she, demands that we accommodate his delusion, and treats our unwillingness to do so as a justification for his misconduct.
Then, after an outbreak of criticism, the resignation from the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs of a former acting director of the CIA, and a scathing letter from the current director, Douglas W. Elmendorf, the hapless dean of the Kennedy School, rescinds the invitation and issues a statement denying what everyone knows — that the school honors someone when it invites that someone to become a Visiting Fellow of its Institute of Politics.