Harvard? Who would have thought?

Christine Merser, April 17, 2025

My father went to Harvard. His father went to Harvard. And his father went to Harvard.

My father’s father taught dentistry at Harvard.

My daughter went to Harvard Law School.

My dad pitched for Harvard’s baseball team. I still have the program from the day he pitched against Yale. And the Yale pitcher that day? George H. W. Bush. The first one. Obviously.

My sister once put on her résumé that she went to Harvard. She took it off after someone interviewing her pointed out that Harvard didn’t admit women in the year she supposedly attended.

“Oh,” she said, “good to know,” and thanked him for his time.

I’ve spent a lot of time at Harvard. I spent two days there in my 40s with a boyfriend who went back to revisit his Harvard days, and I’ve walked the campus many, many times. It’s so beautiful. My daughter’s graduation, filled with pomp and circumstance, was a moment. And I still watch Oprah’s commencement address every year, because I think it captured the elusiveness of Harvard’s exclusiveness while also recognizing the enormity of what has happened on a campus like that—centuries of very smart humans in pursuit of academic excellence, though not always moral fiber. And besides, the opening five seconds is worth it.

Even with all those connections, I have never felt an affinity to Harvard. I’ve never related to it. In some ways, I think I even had a little disdain. But today, I feel like part of the Harvard community.

Harvard stands tall among all the Ivies, refusing to cave to this regime’s effort to take smart out of the American mind.

At first I argued with myself. It’s easy for Harvard to take a stand—after all, losing donor money doesn’t really matter when your endowment could launch dozens of penis-shaped spaceships with Harvard grads waving from the windows for years and years to come.

But then I realized it’s more than that. Harvard responded to this regime within 72 hours. Look, I get that they’re smart humans over there—maybe they were prepared. OK, I’ll give you that. But there was no back-and-forth. No wavering. No hesitation. And it’s the hesitation that’s going to sink us. There’s a tool that procrastinators are given—when you think, “I’ve got to get up and do that,” you say 3-2-1, or in my case, 5-4-3-2-1, and if you get up within that time, you’ll actually do it. It applies here. There can be no hesitation. Not from them. Not from us.

I know an extraordinary woman who was just 11 years old when she came to live with my daughter and I during the Bosnian conflict. When she was eight or nine and the Serbs marched into her village, she and three friends were playing in a field. A jeep pulled up with four Serbian soldiers inside. They waved the girls over and got out. Maybe 10 or 12 feet away.

She looked at them. And then she turned and ran as fast as she could into the woods.

3-2-1. Not even. She did it instantly.

She didn’t wait. She didn’t second guess. She ran.

The other three girls hesitated.

She made it to the trees. They didn’t.

She watched. She survived.

They didn’t.

I don’t mean to be dramatic. But it makes my point. There is no time for hesitation. Not now. Not with the kind of horrible humans pulling up around us in very powerful jeeps. Hundreds of them. From all angles. Every day coming at us from all sides. It’s clear they have been planning this for four plus years. We are deer in headlights.

We are at that moment.

This is not the time to freeze. This is the time to move.

And what’s my responsibility to Harvard today?

This girl who went to the University of Nebraska, loved cheering for the Cornhuskers on Saturdays, and read only two books of literature during all her college years? In Cold Blood and Word Hunter? The course was called Police Literature? We called it Pig Lit. What does she owe Harvard?

My responsibility is to take a minute and write to anyone I know who went to Harvard and tell them I hope they’re letting Harvard know how proud they are to be part of an institution that stands for more than just success.

I have sent my Harvard friends the following text with a preview of this missive. This is dropping on my newsletter tomorrow. I wanted you to be the first to read it. Please extend my thanks to your alma mater. My heartfelt thanks. Xoxo C.

I am also sending them a contribution. $50. Imagine if a few million Americans who can, did. I have never felt compelled to send them anything. I’m so grateful I do now.

I know everyone’s looking for things to do. There are things every day we can do.

There are moments every single day, even now, when we can be proud to be American.

And, today’s it’s Harvard who reminds us who we still are in these times of peril.