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May 19, 2025

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Faculty Hiring Is Under Federal Scrutiny at Harvard

 

Excerpt (links in the original):

 

“A federal agency is claiming Harvard University may have violated antidiscrimination law through its faculty hiring and promotion decisions, citing the university’s own demographic data, The Washington Free Beacon first reported [a week ago].

 

“Andrea R. Lucas, acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, issued what’s called a commissioner charge against the university, which typically precedes an investigation by the EEOC. The document, which the Free Beacon obtained and is dated April 25, cites an annual report on faculty development and diversity showing the proportion of white male professors declined over the past decade, as the ranks of women and faculty of color increased. (Those reports are no longer publicly accessible on Harvard’s website, but at least some information has been archived online.)

 

“Among the tenured, the percentage of white men decreased from 64 percent in the 2013 academic year to 56 percent in 2023. Among the tenure-track, that share dropped from 46 percent to 32 percent in the same period.

 

“‘Since at least 2018 and continuing thereafter, Harvard may have violated and may be continuing to violate Title VII’ -- the federal law barring employment discrimination based on race, color, sex, and other factors – ‘by engaging in a pattern or practice of disparate treatment against white, Asian, male, or straight employees, applicants, and training program participants in hiring, promotion (including but not limited to tenure decisions), compensation, and separation decisions,’ wrote Lucas, whom President Trump designated acting chair in January. She also alleges that Harvard’s ‘pattern or practice of discrimination’ goes beyond the faculty and lists programs that aim to enroll students from underrepresented groups.

 

“Asked for comment, a Harvard spokesperson referenced a Monday letter from Alan M. Garber, the university’s president, addressed to Linda E. McMahon, the education secretary. Last week, McMahon upbraided Harvard in a letter to Garber, recounting the institution’s many failures as she saw them and informing the university president that the institution ‘should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided.’..."

 

Full article at Chronicle of Higher Education. 

 

See also the Shils Report on the hiring and promotion of faculty and comprising the third part of the Chicago Trifecta. 

 

Harvard Spends $1.4 Billion a Year on Non-instructional Staff

 

Excerpts:

 

“Harvard is spending about $1.4 billion a year on ‘Salary Outlays for Full-time Non-medical School Non-instructional Staff,’ according to its most recent filing with the federal government, a figure that is about double what Yale and the University of Chicago pay, and more than triple what Harvard devotes to paying professors and other teaching staff.

 

“Since 2017, Harvard’s spending on administrators, clerical and technical workers, and other functionaries included in that ‘Non-instructional Staff’ category has soared by about $400 million, or about 40 percent. Over the same period, spending on professors and other teachers at Harvard grew by about $80 million, or 25 percent. Degree-program enrollment has remained roughly flat, though Harvard has ramped up revenue-generating online and short-term executive-education programs offering non-degree credentials such as certificates....

 

“And keep in mind that the ‘Salary Outlays for Full-time Non-medical School Non-instructional Staff’ don’t even capture a lot of the money that Harvard spends on contracted-out labor, like security guards from a company called Securitas, the outside landscapers that Harvard brings in to spruce up the campus in advance of Commencement and reunions, or the 16 lawyers from King & Spalding, from Ropes & Gray, from Quinn Emanuel, and from Lehotsky Keller Cohn LLP that are representing Harvard in its suit against the federal government. Harvard has cut back its spending on internal money managers at the Harvard Management Corporation and instead farmed the endowment out to private equity and venture capital managers whose fees aren’t counted as Harvard staff salary outlays. That’s another whole story.”

 

Full op-ed including detailed charts at Substack.

 

See also charts showing similar spending and staffing at Stanford at our Stanford Concerns webpage. See also proposed actions to reduce administrative bloat at Part 3 of our Back to Basics at Stanford webpage. These also are reasons, per Part 4 of our Back to Basics at Stanford webpage, to move the staffing and costs of Stanford’s centers, accelerators and incubators that are not primarily engaged in front-line teaching and research and supervised directly by Stanford’s tenured faculty into one or more separate entities and, in most cases, off the core campus.

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Ivy League Is Still Struggling to Figure Out What's Free Speech and What Isn't

 

Excerpt:

 

“Our country’s most esteemed institutions of higher learning -- the Ivy League schools -- should have figured out how to ensure free speech rights on campus long ago. But they haven’t.

 

“While these private institutions don’t have the same First Amendment requirements that public universities do, they promise their students and faculty a comparable environment where freedom of expression can flourish. Indeed, that’s a huge part of what a college education is all about.

 

“That’s why it’s concerning to see such apparent confusion over what kind of behavior deserves punishment -- and what should be accepted....”

 

Full op-ed at USA Today. Note however that, unlike what is stated in this op-ed, Stanford and other private schools in California are subject to the Leonard Law which requires the schools to comply with the First Amendment in disciplinary and other actions vis-à-vis their students.

 

See also “Survey Finds Many Americans Hold Negative Views of the Ivies” at Inside Higher Ed. See also “Columbia Students Call on School to Crack Down on Protests that Disrupt Learning Ahead of Finals” at Just the News.

 

Other Articles of Interest

 

Stanford Daily Interview of President Levin (May 12, 2025)

Full video at Stanford Daily (32 minutes); also at YouTube.

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Legislation Would Increase Tax on Endowments by Up to 21%

Full article at Inside Higher Ed. See also “Here’s What the Endowment Tax Plan Might Cost Your College” at Chronicle of Higher Education. Also, a 47-page, section-by-section outline of the legislation can be downloaded here.

 

Colleges Spend Heavily on Lobbying

Full article at Inside Higher Ed.

 

Here’s a Look at the Emerging College Applicant -- the Independent Student

Full article at University Business. See also “Independent Applicants - A Growing but Underserved Pool” at Inside Higher Ed.

 

Instead of Punishing Students for Using AI, Colleges and Universities Need to Provide Clear and Consistent Guidelines and Rules

Full op-ed at Hechinger Report.

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Brown Won’t Discipline Student Journalist for His Report on Administrative Bloat

Full article at College Fix. 

 

Writing Tutors at Claremont McKenna Told Correcting Grammar Is Racist

Full article at College Fix.

 

We Have to Rethink the Purpose of Education

Full transcript at NY Times.

 

Professionalization Is Killing College Sports

Full op-ed at James Martin Center.

 

Reinvigorating Civil Discourse at MIT

Full podcast (28 minutes) at Higher Ed Now. See also MIT’s revised webpages re Merit and re Understanding MIT.

 

Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities at Stanford 

 

Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.

 

Stanford Course Helps Students Put Pluralism into Practice

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Targeting Cells’ Trash-Sorting Systems Could Unlock New Treatments for Neurodegenerative Disease​

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The Secrets of Resilient Aging (Podcast - 36 minutes)

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