I graduated from Harvard in 1964. For those of you who are good in math, you might have already realized that means it is almost time for my 60th college reunion. The reunion is at the end of May, and I don’t plan on going, but I did go to a lunch yesterday that was billed as a preliminary to that important event. About 15 of the 90 1964 Harvard graduates who live in the area showed up. We had, among others, a doctor, a physicist, a statistician, a poet, a diplomat, an economist, a journalist and a bunch of lawyers. I knew one of them and recognized three others; everyone else was a total stranger.

The lunch was at the University Club, a downtown eating (and sleeping) club that has been around probably longer than I have. Through the decades I have been in Washington, I have been to a significant number of lunch events there, but I haven’t set foot in the building for over a decade. The first floor is still beautifully attired and the meeting rooms on the second floor still deadly dull. Our $55 lunch consisted of mini-wraps, a bag of potato chips, a green salad, and little lemon and chocolate wedges. Probably worth about $10. No one, on the basis of this meeting, is going to join that club.

A couple of statistics for you to mull over: People who were 81 or 82 (our age now) when we were born were themselves born in 1862 or 1863. People who attended their 60th reunion when we were graduating from college had graduated from Harvard in 1904. You can let that sink in.

Everyone at the lunch got to stand up and say whatever they wanted to say. The first person told his life story from the day he was born until he walked that morning into the University Club, and that sort of set the tone for everyone else. It was interesting, to be sure, but don’t worry if you missed it. I have already forgotten most of what was said – people were born, they went to high school, they liked their Harvard experience, their career has been interesting (some careers more interesting than others), they have or have not downsized from their houses in the DC area, they think the world is falling apart, they are worried about what they are turning over to their grandchildren and Donald Trump scares them to death.

There is something else we all seem to agree on. The Harvard of 2024 is not the same as the Harvard of 1964, and it was a much better place and institution back then. It’s not so much the Claudine Gray episode (her testimony before Congress and her alleged plagiarism) as it is the experiences that Jewish students on campus are having today. Some of those who previously have donated to Harvard appear to have stopped donating (except for two who said that they are still donating to Harvard’s Hillel). Some reported what children or grandchildren who have recently been at Harvard have been saying, and it isn’t pretty. We all noted that there had never been any clashes between groups of students when we were at Harvard, and that no one appeared to feel uncomfortable because of religious or ethnic background. We did not talk about race – there were no Black class members at the lunch (there weren’t that many at the school when we were there).

We didn’t really have a chance to discuss in detail what we felt were the causes of the current situation, and we all realize that Harvard is not the only university facing the same problems. And while clearly the Gaza war was a catalyst, it was felt that the problems go well beyond that. We did talk about the fact that the Jewish student body at Harvard today is only about 1/3 what it was when we were undergraduates, and that this is largely the result of attempts to diversify the student body; there seemed to be differences of opinions of whether this was inevitable, and whether it is for the overall betterment of society. We did not talk about the overall issues of how the social sciences are being taught everywhere today (oppressors vs. the oppressed; colonialists vs. indigenous populations – and how Jews in the Middle East are viewed as oppressors and colonialists, whereas Jews view themselves as always on the edge of being victims exiled from their homes or worse). This did not come up, although it probably would have been the next topic.

At any rate, in addition to the feelings expressed (by Jews and non-Jews) at the luncheon (although the Jewish class members have perhaps the strongest feelings), I learned of at least two classmates who did not attend the luncheon in part (at least) because of how they view Harvard today, and of several who are not going to Cambridge for the reunion because of these feelings. There was also concern stated that the reunion agenda (which had programs on climate change and world peace, etc., contained nothing on Jews (or other ethnic groups) at Harvard being, or feeling themselves to be, under attack, or about the situation at the university in general.

O tempora, o mores. (That’s Latin – do they still teach Latin at Harvard?)