Via Tyler Cowen:
The problem for the board of Harvard is going to be the problem for most any elite institution – it is the sort of position that is used as a prize for status hierarchies among the folks who already have everything.
This means that concerns for the board are overwhelmingly going to personal brand management. And the constituency that matters will not be the public, Harvard grads, or even in the Harvard professorate. It will be the folks who might be able to snub millionaires and disinvite them from the finer things in life.
And once you get into such situations, be they left wing or right wing, you have a very hard time avoiding signaling spirals. After all, there are plenty of folks who want the social cachet of these positions and an effective cudgel to get it will always be to signify greater loyalty to “the cause” than the current incumbents. Which means that the board will be good at playing status games and terrified of enforcing standards in a way that might make them look bad.