TDR Interview: Harvey Mansfield

By J. Lawrence Scholer | Friday, March 1, 2002

Harvey Mansfield, Professor of Government at Harvard University and noted political theorist, has recently made headlines, not for his books on Burke or Machiavelli, but for the two-grade policy he instituted in his classes. Mansfield, dubbed by his students as 'C-Minus,' instituted the policy so that students would not be harmed by grades that were not inflated—he would give students an inflated grade for their transcripts and also give them a true, non-inflated assessment in private.

The controversy over grade-inflation became an issue for all of Harvard and much of the nation when, in an interview with the Boston Globe, Mansfield said that one of the causes of grade inflation was the affirmative action policies of the late Sixties. When black students began to come to Harvard in larger numbers, white professors, not wanting to give the blacks low or average grades, began to give higher grades to all students, said Mansfield. This claim put Harvard administrators on the defensive and enraged the Black Student Association at Harvard, who called for Harvard to censure Mansfield's remarks. Thus, Mansfield wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 'Despite all the talk about free speech at Harvard, you had better watch what you say. And how you grade.'

The Dartmouth Review recently had the opportunity to talk with Professor Mansfield about grade inflation and the 'feel good' state of higher education today.

The Dartmouth Review: Has anything been done at Harvard in response to your statements and criticisms [of grade inflation] other than the few protests held after you made them?

Harvey Mansfield: Nothing substantial has been done, but [the administration] is worried about [grade inflation]. The dean has sent around a letter—this got into the news—together with a lot of statistics, asking all the departments to discuss the subject, and so the whole faculty has been discussing it. And the dean, Susan Peterson, now says that it is a serious problem.

TDR: So Harvard has admitted that grade inflation is a problem. The administration did not like your explanations of grade inflation—have they identified any of their own?

HM: They are not going into explanations, but they are looking for solutions. And they haven't identified any solutions either.

TDR: How long has this been going on?

HM: This started in December, and so the talking phase has begun. The dean didn't even suggest ways to resolve this.

TDR: Do you see much coming out of this?

HM: I kind of think something will happen now. The big change between last spring and now is our new president Larry Summers, who seems to be behind reform of grade inflation.

TDR: Going back to your initial statement on grade inflation, the part that caused the most controversy was that the affirmative action policy in 1969 led to grade inflation. Why didn't grades drop after affirmative action became more ingrained in the admissions process? And why have grades continued to go up or remain grouped at the top?

HM: I would say that the reluctance to give black students low grades has been a factor in preventing grades from going down. Because, you might ask, since they all went up at the time of protest against the Vietnam War, why didn't they go down again after that war was over with a lot of those other things in the late Sixties we no longer see? And, I think the question of affirmative action is part of that—I never said it was the whole thing.

TDR: In reference to the claim that today's students may be better than in the past—there may be some truth in that—why, as students improved, did grades continue to stay so high?

HM: In other words, the faculty never considered tightening up our standards—why shouldn't you have higher standards if you have better students? I think that would have been the normal reaction. And the answer is that the faculty didn't want to. They have, in general, a kind of philosophy of self-esteem. That education is to keep students happy and well-adjusted, rather than to challenge them.

TDR: When did self-esteem notion really come into play? Was that when some students who may not have been as qualified as others gained admission?

HM: It's more general than that. Of course, the whole idea of the protest of the late Sixties was to be against authority, and a lot of the faculty sympathized with the students' objections. And so, they wanted to make those students feel happy or comfortable—so the students wouldn't have to sacrifice and get a low grade just because they were off protesting the war instead of studying for their exams. But there is a general notion, and affirmative action is part of it, that because affirmative action says we have to keep oppressed groups—especially blacks, but also women, hispanics, etc.—from feeling oppressed. So, we have to pump up their self-esteem. Affirmative action is part of it, and multiculturalism is part of it—that's some of the same idea. And then there is from psychology the notion of therapy, that if people feel low or bad about themselves then they won't live happy lives and they also won't exert themselves to improve themselves. In all those different ways self-esteem is active in American higher education.

TDR: Since many of those reasons are of such a sensitive nature, would that be why so many have been reluctant to speak the causes of grade inflation?

HM: I think so.

TDR: Reading over some of the articles [on grade inflation] in the Harvard Crimson and the Boston Globe, they would acknowledge a lot of reasons for grade inflation, especially yours. For yours, though, the articles would say they are not true and leave it at that—but criticizing you at the same time for not explaining yourself.

HM: Well, that is right. They expose themselves. They show by their unwillingness to treat the question calmly and objectively that they were really hurt when I said what I said.

TDR: Other explanations have centered around the [late 1960s], but some have placed more emphasis on the Vietnam War. Has anyone offered a better explanation?

HM: I think it's more complicated. They make the point that grade inflation started before the blacks really arrived here in great numbers. And that may well be true. But, you see, it wouldn't take more than a very few blacks to do this, to have this effect, if you were thinking in terms of not humiliating them by giving them low grades. And, also, there is the question of, as I mentioned before, why grade inflation didn't go down of its own accord after the war ended.

TDR: Would the implementation of affirmative action cause grade inflation at any school? At Dartmouth, for instance we started after Harvard with intensive affirmative action policies.

HM: I don't think that would be the same in every case, but it is very general throughout the country that white professors didn't want to give low grades to black students—either because professors sympathized with them or, in some cases, they were fearful.

TDR: How does that explain the rise in the highest grades? At Harvard ninety-one percent of students graduated with honors, and Yale and Princeton are down around fifty percent.

HM: It doesn't really. That's a good point. You need another explanation for that. It's partly though that once you get so that you're not giving any C's anymore, or essentially not, then there's not much room. Everybody gets squeezed into the top. The highest grades—I think that's the most amazing and most disgraceful for professors to do. What it tells you about the morale of faculty.

TDR: You wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education last year that professors don't care as much about teaching as they once did.

HM: I think that's right.

TDR: Would that scenario be more so at a large research institution like Harvard?

HM: It could well be [more so] than at a place like Dartmouth which has always been known for its good teaching. But, at Harvard too, the idea of being number one—and therefore we have the brightest students—that idea is quite powerful. That idea is put around by the students, too. And so, that may be right, and I think it is true that Harvard SAT scores of admitted students have gone up since the late Sixties, but it isn't true around the country. The SAT scores are about the same. That may apply a little bit, but it by no means explains all the increase in grades.

TDR: Some oppose changes to current grading standards because they feel it would hurt students' chances upon applying to graduate schools. How does one reason that when you have schools like the University of Chicago, which is notorious for lower grades, that still seem to have success getting students into graduate schools? If Harvard were to crack down on grading, everyone would know about it.

HM: All those admissions committees at graduate schools, law schools, and medical schools, and so on, watch this very carefully. They are not going to be fooled.

TDR: Has this made getting into graduate school harder—when you have the best students getting A's and those just below them getting A's as well?

HM: It does make it harder. It's more arbitrary. It is very much against the interests of the best students.

TDR: Are you still using your two grade policy?

HM: I am. I thought over whether not to use it this term, but I decided to go with it since nothing has actually been done.

TDR: This your second or third semester doing it?

HM: It's my third semester.

TDR: How is it received now?

HM: It's older news. [Students] all know about it. As soon as I say the two grade policy, I think most of them know what that means, so it has led to an increase in enrollment in my classes.

TDR: Has it led to an increase in performance by students?

HM: No. I thought they would hate me if they got a C, even if it's just in private. But they don't; they don't seem to mind that. I think the student body in general, nevermind the ones in my course, are a little worried about any reform, but they are not really against it either. There has been no real outcry, certainly no protests or sit-ins or anything like that, and so I think they are resigned to change.

TDR Interview: Harvey Mansfield

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