Below is my column in the Hill on the hypocrisy of Harvard in yet another controversy involving a resident house dean. Gregory Davis is accused of hateful, racist messages, but, so far, it is not viewed as “untenable” by the university. His rage is righteous in the view of many.
Here is the column:
Gregory Davis is really sorry for the “disruption.” For a Harvard resident dean, one would think that he was referencing a malfunctioning fire alarm, not years of racist, hateful messages.
It is akin to Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger (D) referring to the “poor choice” of words of her endorsed candidate for attorney general, Jay Jones, when he said that he wanted to kill his political opponents and their children.
These figures reflect the cynical calculation that apologies are just background music in an age of rage — heard but not really registered.
Davis personifies the unblinking hypocrisy of Harvard. For several months, Harvard faculty have been portraying themselves as victims of political intolerance after the Trump administration sought to force the university to restore intellectual diversity in its departments. The same faculty that spent years purging conservatives and dissenters from their school hyperventilated at the notion that anyone else should object to ideological conformity.
For the record, I opposed measures directed at Harvard as inimical to free speech and academic freedom. Harvard has long been an example of the destruction of higher education in America and the lowering of academic standards to achieve far-left policies. However, Harvard is hardly worthy of sympathy, but it is not worth sacrificing the core principles of free speech to go after it.
So far, there is nothing “untenable” about House Dean Davis, who has encouraged hatred toward police, spewed racist viewpoints, and shrugged off the possible deaths of conservatives.
After President Trump contracted COVID-19 in 2020, Davis reportedly wrote, “F— that guy” and added, “I don’t — at all — blame people wishing Trump ill.” He later reposted the gif from Rocky IV where Ivan Drago says, “If he dies, he dies.”
Critics have unearthed a long string of such unhinged, violent and hateful postings by Davis. He has responded with an effective shrug, insisting that his comments were “made on social media prior to my start in the Resident Dean role.” Some have challenged that claim as a lie, insisting that his call for people to “hate police” came when he was the Interim Resident Dean of Dunster House.
Even if these statements were made entirely before Harvard selected him, they would still be damning. This was not a case where a faculty member or a house dean revealed himself as an extremist after tenure or appointment. Davis never hid his radicalism. Indeed, for Harvard, it might have been part of his attraction.
Not long before his appointment, Davis suggested that “Whiteness is a self-destructive ideology that annihilates everyone around it. By design.” As a professor of critical race theory at UCLA and “gender identity law” at Southwestern Law School, Davis has helped fuel race-based anger against conservatives and police. He has written that everyone “should ask your cop friends to quit since they’re racist and evil.” In another post, he explained how “Rioting and looting are parts of democracy just like voting and marching.”
Davis encouraged students who are “Black or otherwise of color, queer, neurodivergent (ADHD), first-generation, a public high school graduate, from a low-income background, or from urban areas” to reach out to him for advice.
Like many radicals exposed for hateful comments, Davis deleted his postings and offered a perfunctory apology. It is the type of “check-the-box” apology that is now so common. Liberals like Zohran Mamdani spent years denouncing the law enforcement and calling for defunding of police, only to offer the same shrugged apologies when he ran for mayor. None of their radical supporters believes the apology any more than their critics. The key is that it was made, and the media can now move on without causing real damage.
Davis describes himself on the school website as “a Black, queer, neurodivergent (ADHD), first-generation, public school graduate from Detroit.” He encourages students, therefore, to “feel comfortable showing off [their] whole self with [him].” That hardly seems an inviting prospect if you are one of those “evil” people who want to go into law enforcement or one of those whose deaths appear to be of little concern to him.
Still, Davis has little to fear. He hates the right groups. His rage is not dangerous but righteous.
After all, he did not offer representation to any unpopular defendant. At Harvard, that would be “untenable.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the bestselling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Above all radical leftists hate and are motivated by their rage against GOD.
I disagree. God isn’t a consideration at all. It doesn’t cross their minds.
I am neither a radical nor a “leftist”. I used to hate God until I figured out that there is no God. Mortals are responsible for the miseries and wonders of the world. 🕊
For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
They have no duty to good. That can be said about the right too.
Racism is against the law. Gregory has broken the law but there isn’t a specific charge because it’s merely racist speech.
When Iryna was murdered on a train he said I killed that white Woman. There’s enough evidence for charges civil.
TP might bring a civil suit against this dean because it isn’t private speech but public speech. Erica Kirk may have standing because her husband was murdered by a racist antichrist.
Racism remains against the law? Is that true? People confuse racism with other issues such as robbers or murderers of racial groups.
There is no difference between “private speech” and “public speech”. As far as I know he has never said anything actionable against TP or Erica Kirk, so there’s nothing to sue him for.
And no, racism is NOT against any law. In the USA a person is free to be racist, and to say racist things, without any legal consequence whatsoever. Social consequences are different matter.
Personally if I could I’d be out of the US in a shot. Being with this kind of mentality currently at Harvard is nothing anyone should do.
It’s true the black man was scattered throughout the earth it seems in an awful event. The mistake cannot be undone.
Thanks , PT, for the posts. Adieu
Would you cite for that please.
No, racism is NOT against the law. Speech CAN’T be against the law.
And what on earth are “charges civil”?
Trump’s heart, that is.
Someone please remind me whatever became of the commitment by this administration (including Secretary Linda McMahon, and iirc, even Trump) to drastically gut the unconstitutional Dept. of Education, eliminate money extorted from Federal taxpayers flowing to colleges and universities, then eliminate the Dept. itself, to the fullest extent possible. Because I have seen nothing about this, or from McMahon, in months, and that initiative appears to have been completely abandoned.
They’ve cut as much as they can, and they’re still at it. Right now with the shutdown the spigot is off, and they’re working on narrowing it when it comes back on. They can’t eliminate the department altogether; only Congress can do that.
The insane left can’t help themselves.
_____________________________________
Liberal posted “I see any children dressed up in some MAGA type of costume like this little worm, I’m going to be giving them my special Fentanyl laced candy. Antifa action!”
This is what we’re dealing with. Liberals who threaten to kill kids for wearing a MAGA hat….
And rejoice at the assassination of a man exercising his constitutional right to free speech.
Until someone puts that speech into action. Right Mr.Kirk
On Friday, the Financial Times reported that the Pentagon had awarded a significant contract to the drone company Unusual Machines—a company that retains Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser and in which he owns millions of dollars of stock.
No grift here, move along.
Hey, did you see the porn on Hunters Laptop?
BIDEN handed out BILLIONS to his friends/donors on his way out- DUMB ANON!
Are you accusing Donald Trump Jr. of committing a crime?
Communists seek every means to destroy democracies. They will do anything to manipulate the U.S. to destroy itself.
In reality, they are the funniest boobs of all.
Excellent!
Hunter collected how much as an advisor to a foreign, corrupt oil company? Ten cents?
MILLIONS!! Then spent on crack!
The difference is that Hunter had nothing to offer Burisma except his father’s favors. He had no knowledge of the industry, or of anything else helpful to the business, so there was no legitimate reason to pay him ten cents.
Trump will tear down the Pentagon and rebuild a Hexagon.
There’s no evidence of any grift. Should the fact that he has an interest in the company make it ineligible for any government contracts?!
Academia is self-destructing much like Democrats / MSM. Some academicians are pushing back. Professor Anna Krylov, PhD, theoretical and computational quantum chemist at University of Southern California, has published a scathing letter on Heterodox STEM Substack that she sent to Nature science publishing group. It was her response to Nature inviting her to write a peer review of a manuscript within her scientific field. She declined, explained why, provided examples, and then called on the science community to boycott them. She was born in the USSR in 1967, experienced Marxism first hand, and holds Russian, Israeli and US citizenships. It’s always the US immigrants who lived under Communism who take a public stand. There’s a reason for that. Then there are marshmallows like Gregory Davis, JD, PhD (African-American studies)
Why I no longer engage with Nature publishing group
Dear Dr. Kuttner:
I am writing in response to your invitation to review the manuscript titled “Large circular dichroism in the total photoemission yield of free chiral nanoparticles created by a pure electric dipole effect” submitted for publication in Nature Communications.
Although the topic is within my field of expertise and I would normally welcome the opportunity to contribute to peer review, I must decline. Furthermore, I have decided not to engage with journals belonging to the Nature group in any professional capacity in the future because the group has adopted policies and practices that are incompatible with the mission of a scientific publisher.
[…]
These examples disturbingly reveal that scientific publishing at Nature has become ideologically corrupt. For this reason, as a scientist committed to excellence and the advancement of knowledge, I cannot in good conscience continue to engage with the Nature publishing group.
Should Nature recommit to scientific excellence, I will be happy to revisit my decision. In the meantime, I will encourage my fellow scientists to follow my example and stand up for the integrity of science.
https://hxstem.substack.com/p/why-i-no-longer-engage-with-nature
🔥🔥🔥
Re: Gregory’s academic pedigree:
Gregory Davis is a doctoral student in African American Studies with a concentration in Psychology. He works with Professor Jim Sidanius in the Sidanius Lab, which studies intergroup relations and power. Gregory completed his bachelors in psychology in 2010 at Morehouse College, and completed his joint JD/MA in Law and Afro-American Studies at UCLA in 2014. He is a former John H. Hopps Research Scholar and a current Point Foundation Scholar.
[…]
Gregory is originally from Detroit, MI, and is a proud product of the Detroit Public Schools. He enjoys critically engaging with television, film, and other media, as well as walking and exploring. He drinks all his milk, and always asks to be excused from the table.
https://aaas.fas.harvard.edu/people/gregory-davis
He is yet another emotionally stunted 30-something who’s accomplishments include “critically engaging with television, film, and other media” much like are resident George Soros paid DNC troll
Thank for the comment, Estovir, but what do you think of Gregory’s comment and the law, education and the law or public comments and the law? CRT is valid?
Estovir–
Thank you for that. I hadn’t heard of Dr. Krylov. She sounds like a remarkable and true scientist of a type we desperately need to counter the “Follow The Science” types for whom following the science means galloping with the herd and obeisance to the ‘consensus’ and political narrative.
I stopped reading reading JAMA when I came across an article declaring that race was only a ‘social construct’ and nothing to do with genetics. Comic books have more intellectual honesty.
You are welcome. I stopped paying membership dues to the AMA for their support of ACA (Obamacare). I will only read JAMA when they are cited by an original research article. Their literature reviews are bottom rung content. Otherwise, the American Heart Association family of journals are still reliable
https://www.ahajournals.org/action/showPublications
Estovir, you’re about forty years too late.
In the early 1980s, the AMA quietly struck a deal with Washington, making its CPT codes the official language for Medicare billing. It didn’t tell its members. Doctors then had to buy the CPT books just to bill, sending royalties straight to the AMA. The AAPS argued the codes should have been free, like other government-required data, with publishers paid only to format them. Instead, the AMA built a profit center that still earns millions, so one can believe its loyalties lie less with doctors and more with the government. That’s one reason their membership rolls are so low.
“ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY SEA”
Turley’s recent posts–engaging, convincing, and frightening–make me think of Spengler’s “Decline of the West.”
Our sois disant bien pesants are going crazy.
Its time to start the Draft and give these young minds A TASTE OF REALITY.
[Like Gregory Davis “a Black, queer, neurodivergent (ADHD), first-generation, public school graduate from Detroit.”]
Really, as someone that pays other people to help me with my business – if I see a modern Ivy League on the resume as a credential – that sucker is going right into the round file. Not worth the headache. I only expect this mentality to increase.
NYC is going to be the object lesson of all object lessons; thank God we have our Constitution, states’ rights, and separation of powers, because the Big Apple is about to become CHAZ 2.0. People in surrounding areas: brace yourselves for the interstate refugees, they will absolutely bring their boosheet with them, they will inevitably be coming (places like Texas were but a preview), and they can’t help it; and I don’t care how hyperbolic it may sound – some of us have become too reticent in our expectations of others. You are living what you consider to be your ‘normal’ American lie, and then the fat cats move in.
You can prevent it. Do not relent. This absolutely *could* happen to your town or state, and likely without much fanfare. What has happened in our universities is the microcosm of the macro of where we are headed if we do not put all of our feet down, and we are sort of at the tipping point now.
Dear Prof Turley,
The woes, tribulations and [lack of] intellectual diversity besetting Harvard is not contingent upon any proprietary, centralized or forced ‘political’ affiliation. .. far from it.
“For several months, Harvard faculty have been portraying themselves as victims of political intolerance after the Trump administration sought to force the university to restore intellectual diversity in its departments.” ~ story
There are more things in heaven and earth, dear Professor, than are dreamt of in Trump’s forced philosophy.
Intellectual diversity does not ignore, nor does it attempt to suppress, the diversity of thought, habit, culture, ethnic origins, history, climate, language and traditions that ‘differentiate the people and nations of the world’. .. iow, the world is an oyster.
*it ‘repudiates excessive centralization on one hand, and disclaims all attempts at uniformity on the other’.
DG
For several months, Harvard faculty have been portraying themselves as victims of political intolerance after the Trump administration sought to force the university to restore intellectual diversity in its departments.” ~
_________________________
Get a grip. Only thing Prez Trump has done, is for the college stop attacking Jews.
Try harder
Sure Dusty. Havard has long-time been known for attacking Jews! .. a literal bastion of Jew hating antisemites.
Also, after 3,000 years of stoney silence, Peace Prez Trump has finally brought peace, prosperity, love and goodwill to the Holy Lands.
*how’s that?
p.s. Also, that was a quote from Turley’s article.
“Whiteness is a self-destructive ideology that annihilates everyone around it. By design.”
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798, 1802
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person….
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Turns out, Davis’s ancestors, by law, must have been compassionately repatriated on January 1, 1863; he’s not even supposed to be in America, much less disparaging actual Americans.
America does, in fact, continue to strictly adhere to law going all the way back to 1787; do I have that right?
So true, the Supreme Court acted retroactively by 50 years to strike down Roe v. Wade with Dobbs.
“Turns out, Davis’s ancestors, by law, must have been compassionately repatriated on January 1, 1863; he’s not even supposed to be in America, much less disparaging actual Americans.”
Dear George: tell us what’s most belt fed full auto retard:
1. Kluxxers claiming black Americans born on American soil can be repatriated – to continents and countries not even their grandparents ever saw, while their “owners” just arrived in America.
2. Kluxxers today claiming they’re safe from being compassionately repatriated to foreign lands their ancestors never saw after their grandparents immigrated.
3. Kluxxer retards believing there have never been laws passed or amended since 1790?
How’s that steamy intersectional bi-racial love affair with the brilliant black American journalist for Black Liars & Marxists going for you?
After all, your lust interest shouldn’t actually be in America adding a toothpick worth of wood to that wedding tackle of yours.
Lets face it. Harvard has become a “trash” college. Every day they prove it!
Diversity is our strength. Eat $h!t, whitey.
Diversity is Diworseity.
Diversity is not real; it requires charity and affirmative action to promote the inferior to a higher, unachievable position.
If Davis is a product of Detroit Public Schools, the chances are that he is illiterate. Has anyone checked?
No
Dean Davis’ apology, “I apologize for this disruption.” does not begin to acknowledge the inappropriateness of his writings. It only shows regret that a reaction to his writings is diverting his and the administration’s attention to matters other than pleasantly gazing at their collective navels. This attitude is, particularly given the clear and widely understood need for reform in higher education, akin to that of the French Queen’s out of touch “Let them eat cake” dismissal of concern. In that case peasants with pitch forks came to bring reform, perhaps more reform than was needed. Let us hope that Harvard is not going to wait for the “pitch fork armed peasants” to implement reform at Harvard.
It would seem truly odd that in a nation of over 330 million people, Harvard must retain someone like Davis, as though there are no qualified candidates who do not carry this level of controversy. At some point the decision itself becomes revealing. When an institution consistently protects those who express open bigotry and violent rhetoric, while simultaneously purging others for merely representing the “wrong” client, the pattern suggests preference rather than accident.
Harvard proved how swiftly it can act when Ronald Sullivan dared to do what lawyers are supposed to do – provide legal representation. That was labeled “untenable.” Yet years of hateful, racist, and even death-wishing commentary are somehow not disqualifying. Evidently, wrongdoing is not judged by conduct, but by target.
There is no mystery here. When hateful speech is directed at the correct groups, it is tolerated, even rewarded. The rage becomes “righteous.” Academic freedom suddenly has boundaries, but they are political rather than ethical.
If an institution that claims to be committed to truth and inclusion cannot bring itself to enforce a single consistent standard for all, then its problem is not ignorance. It is conviction.
It’s most like a Mel Brooks movie except people actually die.
There are ~ 250 million Americans and falling.
True
“Untenable,” probably not…”Untenurable,” please God!
Bill Hill, Salem, VA
So many people I know in positions of power now see resumes from Ivy League schools as not worthy of bird cage liner.
I know for a fact that, when we see a Harvard resume applying for a job at our company, we 86 it without discussion.
Same with Columbia and Berkley, a bunch of indoctrinated DEI kooks.
pleasantlydecaffeinate,
After reading about all the grade inflation from some of these so called Ivy league schools, The Free Press article about college students using AI bots to write papers, if I owned a company, I would seriously consider offering a paid internship program to highly motivated high school students that taught book work and hands on experience, with testing to ensure the intern learned the field. After say two years, and final tests, they are accredited as equal to a four year degree.
That real-world experience would be far superior to today’s leftist indoctrination.
Yes, but that huge endowment is so much fun.
I recall back in the 80s we called this situational ethics. this guy Davis would not do well if water boarded
Wouldn’t that be a waste of resources? There’s no info to extract.