Word: norwoodã
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...week after a University of Oklahoma historian published a paper severely scrutinizing the University’s association with Hitler’s Nazi regime. Full of anecdotes suggesting that the University was complicit in forming “deliberate ties” with the Nazis, Professor Stephen H. Norwood??s presentation at Boston University provoked curious outrage, and now some are calling for Harvard to issue a public apology for old anti-Semitism...
First, a disclaimer: We do not think that Norwood??s findings are false, per se. The professor’s paper, entitled “Legitimating Nazism: Harvard University and the Hitler Regime,” contains some damning accusations against Harvard and in particular former University President, James B. Conant ’14. And Norwood is probably on point about many of the anti-Semitic attitudes and actions endorsed by individual Harvard professors, students and alumni during the 1930s. This is, of course, a sad fact of history. But that Norwood singles out Harvard...
Harvard officials have responded to Norwood??s claims with a focus on Conant’s autobiography, published in 1970, in which he explicitly states his aversion to Nazism and asserts that he later turned down donations from Nazi philanthropists. Norwood, however, points out that Conant’s words had the benefit of 30 years’ worth of hindsight and that the events that took place under his tenure demonstrate his underlying anti-Semitism. And he may be right...
...denying that Harvard’s past is not peppered with highly contentious actions on the part of its students and faculty. And no one is looking for a pardon. Yet, while Norwood??s examples are certainly disgraceful, they are not uncommon to the interwar period, when many American institutions struggled with their relationships with pre-war Germany. The fact that Norwood has chosen to harp on Harvard alone makes his paper smack of opportunism, not the qualities of an honest scholarly attempt to provide accurate historical perspective...
Harvard issued an extensive rebuke to Norwood??s claims this weekend, asserting that Conant maintained a “consistent opposition” to the Nazi cause...