On July 4, I stood at the site of the Boston Massacre, in front of the Old Massachusetts State House, and heard the Declaration of Independence read from the same balcony where it was first read 250 years ago. Standing on the streets where it all started, I pondered the miracle of those first patriots of Boston who planted the idea of independence in the minds of the people and then saw it realized.
For those of us who are fighting for our history today, it is beyond inspiring—but it is also a cautionary tale, reminding us that the battle over what America would become actually began in a university classroom.
Most American historians say our revolution could not have happened without Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty, and that’s not just in hindsight. Thomas Jefferson called Adams “the earliest, most active and persevering man of the Revolution,” and John Adams, the former president and Samuel’s cousin, said bluntly, “the American Revolution can never be written without the character of Samuel Adams.”
American colonists were angry that the British Parliament failed to uphold their rights as Englishmen, but very few considered the answer was severing ties from the mother country. That thought was not in anyone’s head—until Samuel Adams put it there.
In 1740, Adams graduated from Harvard after defending his thesis, entitled “Whether It Be Lawful to Resist the Supreme Magistrate if the Commonwealth Cannot Otherwise Be Preserved.” Most people at the time would have considered it ludicrous to challenge the King of England, but Adams had launched his ideas at Harvard, the most respected university in the country, and his thinking was not viewed as ludicrous there.
In the 33 years between Adams’ thesis coming to fruition in Philadelphia, with the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Harvard continued to provide Adams with the intellectual leadership and ideas that bolstered his credibility and the work of the Sons of Liberty.
Building on his master’s thesis and collaborating with other Harvard thinkers, Adams wrote and published constantly, creating a new narrative that changed how American colonists thought about themselves and England. He and the Sons of Liberty also created an intricate information network that spread his ideas to the other colonies.
Adams was playing the long game, writing for decades and embedding the principles of his Harvard thesis into a feasible path toward independence. His Harvard allies fortified his work at every step.
James Otis, the first lawyer to challenge the British in court for the practice of unimpeded search and seizure in colonists’ homes, and later the quartering of soldiers, was a Harvard graduate. So was Samuel’s cousin John Adams, as were John Hancock, Joseph Warren and seven other signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Changing the worldview of British colonists in a single generation and rallying them behind the principle of independence was essential to the creation of the United States. The intellectual clarity and selfless commitment of Adams and the Sons of Liberty places them in the pantheon of patriots for all time, but the impact of Harvard University also can’t be understated.
We should not forget that one single academic institution was a critical force in the founding of our country. Samuel Adams knew how a powerful university could expand worldviews and open minds and he used that power for good.
Harvard still understands that power, but the ideas have changed. Now, 250 years later, American universities have been used for a darker purpose: closing minds, stifling individual achievement and creating hatred and divisions specifically designed to destroy the country that Adams and the founding patriots created.
It is a cruel irony that leftist academics chose an acronym that sometimes seems to echo the sentiments of the Declaration of Independence. “Diversity, equity and inclusion,” sounds like something early American patriots would support—until they learned the details about what is known as DEI.
“Diversity” means proclaiming that some people must be given preferential treatment because of their race, gender or even their sexual preference. “Equity” means everyone must achieve the same outcome, regardless of merit or effort. “Inclusion” actually means excluding anyone who disagrees.
We are still trying to determine both the depth and breadth of the Marxist-based Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs that have nearly destroyed free thought and open inquiry at American universities, but it is likely much broader than the 200 academic institutions that admit to being members of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, where the stated mission is to incorporate “alternative narratives” about America “focused on the history of racism, colonization, and conquest.”
It is worth noting that many Americans first saw the massive impact of DEI on higher education when several presidents of elite universities, including Harvard’s Claudine Gay, were forced to testify before Congress where they refused to condemn students at Harvard and elsewhere who were calling for the genocide of Jews. Gay, in sharp contrast to Samuel Adams, apparently had also plagiarized much of her thesis.
Gay still teaches at Harvard and she, like all advocates of DEI, is also playing a long game, resisting higher education reform efforts and clinging to curriculum control, litmus tests in hiring, vast administrative expansion and a K-12 pipeline of DEI indoctrinated teachers that has produced a generation of Americans who have been taught to revile their country, the founders and ultimately themselves.
At President Donald Trump’s direction, the White House Office of Domestic Policy recently released a report that reveals that DEI-driven leadership at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., an academic adjacent institution, has eliminated exhibits of the Founding Fathers—no Samuel Adams or John Hancock. According to the report, only references to Benjamin Franklin and George Washington remain among the early founders, and that’s apparently because they both were slaveholders. The fact that Franklin changed his views and became a leader in the abolitionist movement is not mentioned.
It should be no surprise that new polling released by Gallup just before July 4 found that people who say they are proud to be Americans is at an all-time low, driven by Gen Z, where only 41% view the country positively. Other polling found that half of Gen Z believe America is a “racist country,” and almost 60% believe that capitalism should be replaced with either socialism or communism.
By hijacking the curriculum and dramatically expanding administrative programs, leftist DEI forces in academic institutions have created a new normal—a generation that believes the truth that is self-evident is that America is a colonizing, racist and patriarchal country built on systemic oppression.
Listening to the reading of the Declaration on that sacred ground in Boston, I was grateful Samuel Adams understood that universities are one of the primary forces that shape civilizations. Sadly, he could never have imagined his beloved Harvard would one day focus on dividing Americans between oppressed and oppressors, while teaching students to question whether America even deserves to exist.
Texas has been fighting back against DEI for several years, banning DEI offices at state universities and reforming university governance across the board. Texas will no longer allow universities to abuse their power.
Every state should follow Texas’ lead, not only to ensure that academic institutions are places of open inquiry and free thought, but also that there is another glorious Fourth of July celebration in 50 years—and 100 years after that—in America, and even at Harvard. Our lives, our liberty and our freedom to pursue happiness depend on it.
Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.
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