The crime, such as it was, was never solved, which I assume means that, like nearly all instances of campus racism, it was an inside job. When it became clear that no progress was being made, I wrote the dean of the law school an email suggesting some investigatory tips. For example, the portraits were covered with glass which in all likelihood bore fingerprints. The dean did not respond to my email, nor, as far as I could tell, was the “crime” looked into any further.
That incident gave rise to some soul-searching the part of the law school’s dean, Martha Minow. Quoting myself, at the link above:
The Dean of the law school, Martha Minow, said that racism is a “serious problem” there. Really? Minow has been the Dean since 2009. Why has she allowed racism to flourish? Where has this “serious problem” been manifested, and what has she done about it? Who, exactly, are the “racists” who have created this serious problem?
I expressed skepticism as to Dean Minow’s sincerity. She certainly didn’t think that she, or anyone on the Harvard Law School staff, was a racist. So why would racism be a “serious problem” at the law school? Through the magic of “systemic racism,” racism without racists.
This is what we still see today. Harvard thinks it has a duty to combat racism. But why? Are there a lot of racists on Harvard’s faculty, or in its administration? If so, they should be fired. But of course, that isn’t what they mean. It is “systemic racism”–racism in the air–that they are combatting through their superior virtue. This is why Harvard and so many other institutions have engaged for many years in affirmative action, DEI, in other words, race discrimination. They do it to reverse the effects of “systemic”–i.e., non-existent–racism. Discriminatory policies on Harvard’s part are a sign of virtue.
