When a University President Forgets His Office

When a University President Forgets His Office

There is a difference between defending an institution and diminishing a critic. Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, forgot that distinction in his recent letter to The Chronicle of Higher Education responding to Tyler Austin Harper’s sharp and necessary essay on the Mellon Foundation’s influence over the humanities. Roth did not simply disagree. He mocked. He personalized. He escalated. Harper’s argument was not that Mellon operates…