Education

Harvard Crimson president defends editorial urging some conservatives not to enroll [VIDEO]

Jeff Poor Media Reporter
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On CNBC’s “The Kudlow Report,” host Larry Kudlow criticized Harvard Crimson president Bobby Samuels for an editorial the paper published urging some conservatives not to apply to the university, but Samuels stuck to his guns.

“You know, I think the main point of the editorial was not that we’re trying to limit free speech at all,” Samuels said. “In fact, I think one of the tenets of any journalist organization — and certainly of the Crimson — is to foster free speech and foster debate. The main point we were making though is that there’s a certain dissonance or a certain hypocrisy,almost, in coming to a school and utilizing its educational resources and then turning around a few years later and criticizing the school in sort of a blanket way.” (RELATED — Harvard paper to scheming conservatives: Don’t apply)

Samuels specifically called out Harvard alumnus Mitt Romney for his criticizing President Barack Obama during the 2012 presidential campaign for spending too much time at Harvard — even though Romney had actually been enrolled at the Ivy League institution for even longer than the president.

“The position is more that there’s an inconsistency with using sort of these hypocritical arguments for political gain,” Samuels said. “I think that’s the important point. I think the Mitt Romney point is an important one, and an interesting one, that he said Obama spent too much time at Harvard, when he himself spent more time. So he was leveraging Harvard in a political way.”

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