A New York Times article about how Harvard is treating its students, particularly first generation and low income students, during the pandemic reports: "some scholars say a fundamental tension remains between the school's explicit mission in the first centuries of its existence — to reproduce the white gentry by educating its sons — and its stated role now, as a beacon of diversity and democracy where a prestigious education is available to any and all who merit acceptance."
The Times doesn't name any of these "scholars." Just for the record, though, it is not accurate that the school's "explicit mission in the first centuries of its existence" was "to reproduce the white gentry by educating its sons."
Here is the Harvard Charter of 1650: "Whereas through the good hand of God many well devoted persons have been and daily are moved and stirred up to give and bestow sundry gifts legacies lands and revenues for the advancement of all good literature arts and sciences in Harvard College in Cambridge in the County of Middlesex and to the maintenance of the President and Fellows and for all accommodations of buildings and all other necessary provisions that may conduce to the education of the English and Indian youth of this country in knowledge and godliness."
The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 said in part, "Whereas our wise and pious ancestors, so early as the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-six, laid the foundation of Harvard College, in which university many persons of great eminence have, by the blessing of God, been initiated in those arts and sciences, which qualified them for public employments, both in church and state: and whereas the encouragement of arts and sciences, and all good literature, tends to the honor of God, the advantage of the Christian religion, and the great benefit of this and the other United States of America."
Harvard's stated and functional purpose in its early years, similar to that of many other early American universities, was training Christian ministers and "civilizing" the Indians. There's nothing in there about "white gentry." The language seems like a clumsy attempt by the Times to superimpose a "Black Lives Matter" framework on the early history of higher education in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. That seems unanchored from the documentary evidence. It's true that it took until 1865 for Harvard to graduate any black students, and women didn't enroll until about the same era, but it's a long leap from that to the claim that the university's explicit mission was reproducing "white gentry."