a) I took a course from him back in the early 80s. It was a big lecture course, 200 students or so, and very little class discussion. (He would stand up in front of the class and intone crazy Straussian interpretations in a soft whisper.) About 15 years later I ran into him at a conference and I mentioned that I’d taken his course. He said, “Yes, I remember you.” Bullshit! He had no basis whatsoever for remembering me. A “noble lie,” I guess, but to what end?
b) While I was his student I went to a talk he gave about racism, affirmative action, etc. Two incidents out of this. One is, he asked “Why does it matter whether blacks are statistically under-represented on the Harvard faculty? Jews are statistically over-represented on the Harvard faculty, and no one thinks that’s a bad thing.” The Harvard Crimson quoted this as “There are too many Jews on the Harvard faculty.” The Spartacist paper improved this still further, to “There’s too many Jews.”
c) Okay, that last anecdote ends up worse for his critics than for him. But here’s the really surreal one: He was saying in his talk that racism is essentially dead in the USA today. During the Q&A a black student expressed doubt about this claim.
Mansfield answered: “No, racism is really pretty much dead. For example, you never hear the N-word any more.”
Student: “That’s not true. I certainly hear it.”
Mansfield: “Hmm, it’s odd that you say that, because I never hear it.”
Student: “Well, people might be less likely to call you that.”
Mansfield: “No, just the opposite — I would think people might feel freer to use it around me than around you.”
(So, the fact that Mansfield doesn’t hear the N-word much from people in his social group — Harvard professors! — shows that racism is dead. Free at last, free at last!)
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