Grading on the Harvard Curve
OPPENHEIM, NOAH D.
Grading on the Harvard Curve Harvey Mansfield's irony goes unappreciated. BY NOAH D. OPPENHEIM HARVARD was once a great university. It may still be, but it is now even greater theater. No one...
...On the first day of class, Mansfield, a legendarily tough grader, announced a new approach to evaluating his students...
...But Harvard deliberately withholds the relevant data...
...He explained that it was linked to the concern over self-esteem...
...There is no statistical proof that grades rose concurrently with the arrival of black students...
...value of their work, and another "ironic grade" reflecting Harvard's inflated grading system...
...Grades are supposed to convey relative merit...
...That Harvard inflates its grades should hardly be a controversial claim...
...University president Neil Rudenstine issued a statement denying a connection between minority enrollment and grade inflation, but never naming the offending professor...
...At the same time they didn't give Cs to white students to be fair...
...Harvard's Black Students' Association reacted with outrage...
...For an institution that says it values diversity so much . . . they should walk the walk instead of just talking it...
...In an admirable show of restraint, Harvard has thus far declined to formally censure Mansfield for his remarks...
...Again, on the subject of relative qualifications, Mansfield offers no firm evidence...
...Said Williams after the meeting, "He clarified his point of view, which was that his main issue was with white professors and white guilt...
...Apparently dismissing Lewis's public denunciation as inadequate, its president, Aaliyah Williams, complained to the Crimson, "The University has not done anything in the way of censuring [Mansfield...
...The campus paper, the Harvard Crimson, ran an editorial celebrating the demise of Mansfield's "despotic grading" and facetiously welcoming his realization that Harvard students have the "infinite wisdom necessary to master the great works presented in his class...
...In the past, students enrolhng in Mansfield's courses faced a cruel bargain: one of the best learning experiences at Harvard, in exchange for the risk of an honest evaluation...
...That risk is not insignificant, as a "C" does not please Wall Street recruiters...
...Mansfield's offensive contention rests on a simple assumption: Black students admitted through affirmative action in the early 1970s were less academically qualified—through no fault of their own—than those admitted without the benefit of special consideration...
...Mansfield's new two-tiered system was applauded on campus, but not for its subversive intent...
...The university, meanwhile, has no plans to combat grade inflation...
...It is natural to wonder why, if black students in the early 1970s were as prepared as whites, alErmative action was necessary at all...
...As this most recent episode confirms, when it comes to affirmative action, Harvard would prefer not to face uncomfortable realities...
...Of course, given Che school's generous grading system, Harvard's high graduation rate is hardly compelling testimony to its students' merit—^black or white...
...He needs to communicate that more, that his issue is with the professors and not with us...
...He points to graduation rates—the only data the university releases by race—as evidence...
...It was hardly a surprise, then, when his first lecture this semester landed him in the pages of the Boston Globe...
...Rather, they reject the implication that black students required any charity to begin with...
...They, therefore, needed help to earn high grades...
...But that is hardly his fault...
...No one knows the script better than government professor Harvey C. Mansfield, a renowned scholar of political philosophy who has a certain knack for finding trouble...
...But those clamoring for Mansfield's punishment are not angry at his anecdotal approach to history or his ascription of charitable instincts to white professors...
...Instructors from elementary schools to universities want their students not to feel bad, so they give out higher grades than their students deserve...
...Mansfield's affirmative action theory was not well received...
...When affirmative action opened Harvard's doors to a large number of minorities in the early 1970s, "white professors were unwilling to give black students Cs to avoid giving them a rough welcome...
...First, it must be acknowledged that Dean Lewis is correct on one count— Mansfield's theory is short on supplementary evidence...
...Henceforth, he would bestow two grades—one reflecting the true Noah D. Oppenheim is a producer at Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC...
...Yet, that is precisely what many Harvard students believe...
...And it seems preposterous that half the students at Harvard have achieved near perfection...
...If Harvard's students had missed Mansfield's point, they would not miss a chance to further deride him, and it soon came their way...
...But that should cause no trouble...
...Forget for a moment the pristine absurdity of censuring an outspoken professor in the name of diversity...
...Now, it seemed, the learning finally could come risk-free...
...In the course of an interview about grade inflation, Mansfield was asked about the origins of the problem...
...The "ironic grade" would go to the registrar so that each student's perfect transcript, if not his ego, would remain intact...
...Lewis declines to speculate on the abilities of students in the past, but insists, ¦ "Today there is no significant diiference between the academic ' qualifications of minority stu-• dents and other students...
...It is irresponsible for him to make this broad and divisive claim without providing a shred of evidence to support it...
...This assumption could easily be tested by examining the high school GPAs and test scores of incoming black and white students at the time...
...Only Mansfield's students can expect an honest assessment of their work, even if it will no longer be part of their scholastic record...
...Williams argues that Mansfield's comments "discredit the efforts of African Americans who came [to Harvard] and worked so hard...
...When it comes to the students' own intellectual vigor, they are equally squeamish...
...Mansfield also posited a related historical explanation...
...The Black Students' Association staged a sit-in protest at one of Mansfield's lectures, and subsequently met with him for two hours behind closed doors...
...The dean of Harvard College, Harry Lewis, told the Globe, "This is groundless and false...
...Lewis explains, "I don't know the precise origin of this policy, but I view it as of a piece with our general view that students are admitted here as individuals, not as representatives of classes...
...This past academic year, more than half of the marks given to Harvard students were "A-" or higher...
Vol. 6 • March 2001 • No. 24
