Gregory Davis finds himself apologizing for what he terms a “disruption.” As a resident dean at Harvard, one might assume he was addressing a minor inconvenience like a faulty fire alarm, rather than the issue of years-long racist and hateful messaging.

This situation is reminiscent of Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger, who downplayed the controversial comments of her attorney general candidate, Jay Jones. Jones had made alarming remarks about wanting to harm his political adversaries and their families, which Spanberger labeled as a “poor choice” of words.

These examples highlight a prevalent trend where apologies seem to serve as mere background noise in today’s heated political climate—acknowledged but often not taken seriously.

Davis exemplifies what many see as Harvard’s blatant hypocrisy. For months, faculty members at Harvard have claimed victimhood over political intolerance, especially after the Trump administration pushed for the return of intellectual diversity in their departments. The same educators who have systematically sidelined conservative voices now express outrage at the suggestion of ideological balance.

While I oppose initiatives targeting Harvard as they conflict with free speech and academic freedom, I recognize that Harvard has been a symbol of the decline in higher education standards in favor of far-left ideologies. Nonetheless, despite its shortcomings, it is crucial to uphold the core tenets of free speech rather than compromise them to challenge Harvard’s practices.

Years ago, Harvard faculty and students cancelled House Dean Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., a Harvard Law professor, because he dared to represent someone they disliked. Sullivan was fired after he offered legal advice to disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana yielded to the mob and declared that Sullivan had to go because “the situation is untenable.”

So far, there is nothing “untenable” about House Dean Davis, who has encouraged hatred toward police, spewed racist viewpoints, and shrugged off the possible deaths of conservatives. 

After President Trump contracted COVID-19 in 2020, Davis reportedly wrote, “F— that guy” and added, “I don’t — at all — blame people wishing Trump ill.” He later reposted the gif from Rocky IV where Ivan Drago says, “If he dies, he dies.”

Critics have unearthed a long string of such unhinged, violent and hateful postings by Davis. He has responded with an effective shrug, insisting that his comments were “made on social media prior to my start in the Resident Dean role.” Some have challenged that claim as a lie, insisting that his call for people to “hate police” came when he was the Interim Resident Dean of Dunster House. 

Even if these statements were made entirely before Harvard selected him, they would still be damning. This was not a case where a faculty member or a house dean revealed himself as an extremist after tenure or appointment. Davis never hid his radicalism. Indeed, for Harvard, it might have been part of his attraction.

Not long before his appointment, Davis suggested that “Whiteness is a self-destructive ideology that annihilates everyone around it. By design.” As a professor of critical race theory at UCLA and “gender identity law” at Southwestern Law School, Davis has helped fuel race-based anger against conservatives and police. He has written that everyone “should ask your cop friends to quit since they’re racist and evil.”  In another post, he explained how “Rioting and looting are parts of democracy just like voting and marching.”

Davis encouraged students who are “Black or otherwise of color, queer, neurodivergent (ADHD), first-generation, a public high school graduate, from a low-income background, or from urban areas” to reach out to him for advice.

Like many radicals exposed for hateful comments, Davis deleted his postings and offered a perfunctory apology. It is the type of “check-the-box” apology that is now so common. Liberals like Zohran Mamdani spent years denouncing the law enforcement and calling for defunding of police, only to offer the same shrugged apologies when he ran for mayor. None of their radical supporters believes the apology any more than their critics. The key is that it was made, and the media can now move on without causing real damage.

Davis describes himself on the school website as “a Black, queer, neurodivergent (ADHD), first-generation, public school graduate from Detroit.” He encourages students, therefore, to “feel comfortable showing off [their] whole self with [him].” That hardly seems an inviting prospect if you are one of those “evil” people who want to go into law enforcement or one of those whose deaths appear to be of little concern to him.

Still, Davis has little to fear. He hates the right groups. His rage is not dangerous but righteous.

After all, he did not offer representation to any unpopular defendant. At Harvard, that would be “untenable.”

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the bestselling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”