Harvard’s highest value? Ideology, of course.

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby says:

Harvard's motto is ''Veritas," Latin for ''truth." But at Harvard, as in much of academia, ideology, not truth, is the highest value.

Nothing exemplifies the moral and intellectual rot of elite academic culture like the sight of Harvard's president falling on his sword for the crime of uttering statements that the vast majority of Americans would regard as straightforward common sense.

Jacoby provides examples of Summers's comments and actions that turned many at Harvard against him, including the remarks that first set the anti-Summers's campaign in motion:

Summers's fall from grace actually began on Oct. 26, 2001, less than four months after his presidency began.

That was the date on which he addressed the annual public service awards banquet at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and had the temerity to speak favorably of American patriotism -- and, even more audaciously, to express admiration for the men and women who serve in the US armed forces.

Patriotism is a word ''used too infrequently" on campuses like Harvard's, Summers said, and too many academics regard those who wear the uniform with ''disaffection."

He stressed ''the importance of clearly expressing our respect and support for the military," and pointedly voiced the ''hope that when you have this award next year, among those who will be recognized will be those who have served our country in uniform."

Summers followed up that message in a Veterans Day letter to Harvard cadets and midshipmen, writing that he ''and many others deeply admire those of you who choose to serve society in this way." And in remarks to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, he described military service as ''vitally important to the freedom that makes possible institutions like Harvard."

In most of America, such views are commonplace. But at Harvard -- where ROTC has been banned for more than 30 years -- more than a few faculty members were bound to find them appalling.

Just how much they rankled is suggested by the fact that on the day Summers resigned, one of his most virulent opponents -- anthropology professor J. Lorand Matory -- told an interviewer that among the things that made the university president so unbearable was his ''telling us we should be more patriotic."

There sure are a lot of loathsome, ungrateful, smug and foolish people at Harvard. And on most other campuses. And in many other places in America.

How do people who seem to have at least Average intellectual ability not realize that the ultimate guarantors of their freedoms are the men and women serving in the U. S. military.

Back to Harvard. As I said yesterday, we need to follow what’s happening there now and in the next few years. The direction Harvard takes will influence most other colleges and universities.

I plan to post for the next fews weeks on what’s happening at Harvard and its future direction. I hope you keep visiting.

Also, in a day or two I plan to start posting on diversity and other issues at North Carolina campuses, with special attention to UNC – Chapel Hill and Duke.

Be sure to read Jacoby’s column.