The Worth of an Ivy League Education

In February 2023, I wrote an article for the Commentator, Yeshiva University’s student newspaper, decrying YU’s English department not teaching great authors from the Western literary canon (https://yucommentator.org/2023/02/the-ghost-of-torah-umadda-english-literature-at-yu/). It turns out that Harvard and Columbia are far worse. Harvard features fourteen Lecture Courses listed for the Fall 2026 term. Putting aside two classes about creative writing and acting, what are Harvard students being asked to read?

The Canon: 1) Shakespeare. 2) Chaucer (who I personally do not think great) 3) The first novels.

Entertainment: 1) Introduction to Old English: Charms, Herbals, Folk Medicine, Medical Cures. 2) Science Fiction.  3) Video Game Storytelling. I do not think any of this material will reach the heights of Prufrock or The Crucible.

Woke Driven. 1) American Literature and the Environment. 2) Introduction to African American Studies. 3) Race, Speech and Law. 4) Beyond Settler Borders: an Introduction to Native American Studies. 5) Richard Wright: Literature, Philosophy, and Politics. 6) Is the US Civil War Still Being Fought?

Some of the listed may be serious and worthwhile but there are, arguably, five courses about the black minority. There are no courses about drama, poetry, Romantic Literature, Victorian Literature, or Modern Literature. Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Victor Hugo, and George Eliot are not invited. The proportion of focus is way off.

I was initially surprised that there is nothing relating to women or LGBTQ until I realized that they are incorporated into a department of Women, Gender and Sexuality. An obsession with the good cause of minority rights runs the risk of: a) Selecting weaker literature. b) Subsuming literary analysis and appreciation to teaching the correct ideological stance.

Columbia’s core curriculum of Great Books courses might have been cause for optimism. However, an excellent student of mine took a course in American History this past year in which the assigned readings included works titled Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference, The Politics of Difference, The Scaling of Bodies and the Politics of Identity, and What is the Point of Equality. According to my student, all the other readings were analyzed through a DEI lens as well.

These students lose out on great books about America written by David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Robert A. Caro, and Alexis de Tocqueville. Furthermore, the course takes two important causes, racial and gender inequality, and makes them the sole themes in American history. Such an approach reduces the interesting complexity of humanity to a single idea, or perhaps two ideas, and creates an environment in which students write papers to please their teacher’s ideological preferences.

In addition, Harvard and Columbia both have an anti-Semitism problem and other issues. A note to Modern Orthodox families: If your sons and daughters go to the Ivies (certainly in the Humanities) for educational enrichment, you are not getting your money’s worth. Conversely, if you mostly want them to get a job at Goldman Sachs, it could be worth it.