Like Bud Light, Harvard Discovers Backlash

Campus Reform reported, “Harvard’s early acceptance decisions were released on Dec. 14, with many students who have rejected their respective offers choosing to do so in less than a week.

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“Campus Reform recently reported that Harvard’s early decision applications dropped 17% compared to last year’s total — from 9,553 in 2022 to 7,921 in 2023.”

Donors are leaving. Employers are leaving. Customers are going elsewhere. Buttressed with a $50 billion endowment fund and a federal grant pipeline, Harvard is nowhere near going out of business, but its reputation among the elitists has fallen and Claudine Gay can’t get Harvard back up.

[I’m slightly less optimistic about this than Don is. Harvard’s appeal is primarily to those who aspire to join the elite, not just financially but culturally as well. Nike actually hired Dylan Mulvaney to represent their sports-bra products, unlike Bud Light, which just connected with Mulvaney with an influencer relationship. Nike didn’t pay any real price for that, not because it was less offensive — arguably his performative frolicking in women’s sports bras was *more* offensive — but because Nike’s customer base has the same aspirations to cultural elitism. At least for now, Harvard’s experiencing a backlash over its anti-Semitism, but I think Gay and the board believe they can outlast it. And they probably can. — Ed]

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