Nader, a Harvard Law graduate, is seeking a seat on Harvard’s board of overseers, one of two governing panels that comprise the school’s governance. He’s running as part of what Politico described as a “protest slate” of candidates, who are advocating a more transparent admissions process. However, he’s taking heat for the associations of some in the group with anti-affirmative action stances.
Let’s see if the heat gets turned up on him for this one, too:
While there’s little reason to doubt Nader’s commitment to affirmative action, during an hour-long interview he offered some hints of frustration with many liberals’ focus on multiculturalism. At a time when many campuses are being roiled by calls to rename buildings dedicated to historical figures who were racist and by debates over “trigger warnings” and “microaggressions,” Nader said he thinks some activists have lost their way. “I think this whole identity politics ought to be used to fight corporate power,” he said. “This identity politics is an implosion phenomenon. It gets more and more bitter over less and less … At one time there were very serious situations where students were getting beat up in the South and getting excluded per se from Harvard. Those were really serious discriminatory practices.”
In the Politico interview, Nader also wondered if Harvard was now just a “feeder school into the plutocracy.”
The Harvard Crimson described the five-member ticket of candidates of which Nader is a part, as well as the sole affirmative action backer:
Leading the charge was Ron K. Unz ’83, a conservative intellectual and entrepreneur who was at the forefront of the fight against bilingual education in California. Joining Unz, who also recently announced a bid for U.S. Senate, was Lee C. Cheng ’93, a lawyer who filed a Supreme Court amicus brief against affirmative action, and Stephen D. Hsu, a physicist advocating “merit, not race, in college admissions.” The ticket was rounded out by journalist Stuart S. Taylor, Jr., who co-authored a book on “mismatch theory”—the theory that affirmative action places the students intends to help in overwhelming academic settings. Then there was Ralph Nader. A five-time U.S. presidential candidate and longtime public figure, Nader—a Harvard Law School graduate who built his career on consumer protection activism and environmentalism—seemed an odd fit for a University governing board, much less as a member of Unz’s “Free Harvard, Fair Harvard” ticket. Beyond the outsider candidates, eight other alumni are vying for the Board’s five open spots.
The Crimson noted that ballots for the board went out to Harvard alumni in April, and are due Friday.
