A professor who taught at Harvard University for four decades has expressed strong criticisms of the institution in his retirement announcement, highlighting what he perceives as its exclusion of white men.
In his essay, “Why I’m Leaving Harvard,” history professor James Hankins shared that his choice to depart was not impulsive; it stemmed from experiences during 2021 following years of campus turmoil due to COVID-19 lockdowns and the George Floyd protests, which he claims significantly altered the graduate admissions landscape.
Hankins recalled a situation during the fall of 2020, where an exceptional applicant would usually stand out in the admissions process. “In previous years, this candidate would have been among the top choices,” he noted.
However, he revealed that, in 2021, members of the admissions committee told him privately that admitting white men was not an option that year.
He provided another instance involving a white male student, deemed “literally the best,” who received an award as the most outstanding graduating student but was ultimately denied acceptance into all the graduate programs he applied to.
“This student was also a white male,” Hankins pointed out.
To clarify the situation, he reached out to colleagues at other universities and found similar trends. Admissions committees nationwide appeared to adhere to a comparable unwritten policy.
He remarked that the only exception he found to this exclusion seemed to be for those who started life as women.
Hankins delivered his last lecture at Harvard just two weeks ago, having honored a severance agreement he signed in 2021 that recently concluded.
A Harvard representative confirmed that graduate admissions processes are managed by faculty at the departmental level, as Hankins mentioned in his writing.
