In a recent op-ed, Harvard student Brooks Anderson states that her school needs more Republicans for “true diversity” after the campus failed to understand this week’s election results.
Writing for the Harvard Crimson, Anderson states, “If we are serious about true diversity — if we really believe it is our strength and that the value of a Harvard education hinges upon exposure to new ideas and new understanding — it might be time to admit a few more Republicans.”
The campus was predictably shocked when Donald Trump won the presidential election this week, Anderson states.
“Of course we are shocked that Trump has won: we study at a single-party school,” he states.
Anderson references a recent Crimson survey, which shows that about five percent of Harvard’s freshman class is Republican.
“It is possible that a Harvard undergraduate — especially in a progressive concentration — could go through an entire semester not engaging with a single conservative classmate or professor,” Anderson states.
Further, even if there are Republicans in the classroom, their views are likely to be “stifled.”
He states that this “lack of exposure to truly diverse perspectives is antithetical to Harvard’s mission of educating ‘the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society.’”
Anderson also writes:
Harvard students have learned from countless marginalized voices and international cultures, but cannot understand how over 72 million of our countrymen — perhaps an outright popular vote majority — cast their ballots for Trump.
We cannot understand because Harvard has abandoned its own mission statement, refusing to acknowledge the immense constituency of conservatives that is colossally underrepresented at this school. We cannot understand because the millions of Americans who turned out for Republicans yesterday are nowhere to be found in our classrooms, dining halls, dorms, or faculty.
Finally, he suggests that Harvard “perform a serious evaluation of how well it is representing the world it wants to educate.”
MORE: Wesleyan president blasts Trump as threat to ‘undocumented’ students
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