NY Times: The ‘H-Bomb’ Fizzles—The Harvard Brand Takes A Hit

New York Times, The ‘H-Bomb’ Fizzles: The Harvard Brand Takes a Hit:

There exists a species of person — typically a well-groomed overachiever — who, when asked where he or she went to college, rather than state its name directly, will provide a Russian nesting doll set of geographical responses.

In New England. Massachusetts. Well, Boston. Um … Cambridge.

Finally, sotto voce, with an apologetic wince or sheepish smile, anticipating the word’s being volleyed back in an affected Boston Brahmin accent: Harvard.

For decades, circumspect students and alumni of the nation’s oldest university have played “this unbearable little game,” said William Deresiewicz, author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite & the Way to a Meaningful Life. “They’re coy, because they don’t want to destroy our egos, but they can’t wait for the moment they drop the ‘H-bomb.’” ...

This coyness may be no crime, but a genuine wish not to appear bigheaded for their association with an institution that is shorthand for the acme of academe. No matter Harvard’s perch in that year’s rankings in U.S. News & World Report (currently No. 2, after Princeton), it remains peerless in global cachet. It is the university boasting the most presidents among its graduates (eight, including the law and business schools), and the one that, despite prohibitions against on-campus filming, is cast in movies and TV shows, for every genre from love stories to law-school comedies, to italicize its characters’ intellects and — how do you like them apples? — elite status.

Yet after several incidents that have besmirched the university’s reputation, and in an era of heightened self-consciousness over privilege, that formerly contrived embarrassment may be ceding to sincere shame and a reassessment of the merits of a Harvard education. ...

Beyond the unsavory headlines and questionable associations, swelling populist resentment for bastions of exclusivity and obscene wealth — from many of Mr. Trump’s supporters and critics alike — may inspire alumni of Harvard, and similarly elite schools, to be even less conspicuous about where they received their degrees. ...

The rose-garden perfume of privilege — as charged a word as can be found on campuses these days — emanating from anyone with a Harvard diploma receives more censure now than ever, whether that privilege came in the form of significant parental help in gaining admission or was acquired at the school and now opens endless doors. ...

Nick F. Barber, a current senior, wrote in 2014 in The Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper, that “privilege — and more importantly what privilege says about each of our characters — makes us uncomfortable. Our privilege forces us to question our worthiness and our merit, two of the things most highly valued at an institution like this one.”