Harvard Professor Announces Retirement, Slams Ivy League Over ‘Exclusion of White Males’

A longtime Harvard University professor is retiring after four decades at the Ivy League institution, using a public essay to accuse the school of fostering an anti-white, anti-male culture that he says fundamentally altered admissions standards and academic priorities, as reported by The New York Post.

James Hankins, a history professor who taught at Harvard for roughly 40 years, laid out his concerns in an essay titled “Why I’m Leaving Harvard,” published in Compact Magazine. Hankins wrote that his decision to retire “was not a sudden one” and said he made the choice in 2021 following what he described as two destabilizing years on campus.

“The one exception I found to the general exclusion of white males had begun life as a female.”

Harvard professor James Hankins explains why he’s leaving:https://t.co/wtaDUR46nl pic.twitter.com/RshP0QUM2O

— Matthew Schmitz (@matthewschmitz) December 29, 2025

According to Hankins, those years were defined by COVID-19 lockdowns and the unrest following the death of George Floyd, events he said had a direct impact on how graduate admissions decisions were handled.

“In reviewing graduate student applicants in the fall of 2020, I came across an outstanding prospect who was a perfect fit for our program,” Hankins wrote.

“In past years, this candidate would have risen immediately to the top of the applicant pool.”

He said that changed the following year.

“In 2021, however, I was told informally by a member of the admissions committee that ‘that’ (meaning admitting a white male) was ‘not happening this year,’” Hankins wrote.

Hankins said the incident was not isolated. He described another case involving a white male undergraduate student whom he called “literally the best” student at Harvard.

The student, according to Hankins, won the award for the graduating senior with the strongest overall academic record.

Despite that achievement, Hankins said the student was rejected from every Harvard graduate program to which he applied.

“He, too, was a white male,” Hankins wrote.

Seeking answers, Hankins said he contacted colleagues at other universities.

“I called around to friends at several universities to find out why on earth he had been rejected,” he wrote.

“Everywhere it was the same story: Graduate admissions committees around the country had been following the same unspoken protocol as ours.”

Hankins said he found only one exception.

“The one exception I found to the general exclusion of white males had begun life as a female,” he wrote.

Hankins explained that he signed a four-year retirement contract in 2021 and continued teaching until the agreement expired. His final lecture at Harvard University took place two weeks ago.

In response to questions about the essay, a Harvard spokesperson told Fox News that, as Hankins acknowledged in his own piece, graduate admissions decisions are faculty-led and handled at the department level rather than centrally controlled by the university.

Hankins’ essay has circulated widely since its publication, drawing renewed attention to ongoing debates about race, gender, and merit-based admissions at elite academic institutions.

His claims come as Harvard and other Ivy League schools face increased scrutiny from lawmakers, courts, and the public over admissions practices and internal policies.

Hankins did not indicate whether he plans to continue teaching elsewhere or pursue other academic work following his retirement. He said his decision reflected what he views as long-term institutional changes rather than a single dispute.