The left has to blame someone, anyone, for the disaster that was Claudine Gay’s presidency at Harvard. They can’t blame her for her actions – what are you, racist?
The media and Democrats (I repeat myself) have arranged a narrative that it is conservatives who were out to get Gay and they succeeded. It is truly an odd flex, yet entirely predictable. She is a black woman – the first black woman president at Harvard – so any opposition to Gay is racist. Here is the kicker, though. Her hiring was the racist move, not the pressure for her to resign. She was hired for her skin color and her gender.
Would a middle-aged white man be hired to be president of the university who has a lack of published work or notable research? Would that man be given a pass when it came to due diligence in vetting his academic background, which would have led to discovering her habit of plagiarism? The plagiarism alone should have been enough for calls for her resignation. In the 2020-2021 academic year, Harvard suspended 27 students for plagiarism. That was a six-year high. It is considered an honor code violation. Is the university president also held to a code of honor? Why was there any hesitation about this?
Gay did what diversity hires do when it becomes apparent that they are not up to the job – she threatened to sue Harvard and cried racism. The leftist media has been justifying this since she announced her intention to do so. There were plenty of hot takes on social media and there were immediate calls for her replacement to be another black woman. They have learned nothing during this scandal. Hiring another black woman for the color of her skin only keeps the cycle going. Diversity hiring must end. It’s a disaster. Look at the Biden White House for more examples.
If Gay must be replaced by a black woman, how about Dr. Carol Swain? She is a retired professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University. She has written several books. Alas, she is conservative, so she is automatically out of contention. Swain is also a person who Gay plagiarized. Now that would be a twist, wouldn’t it? Awkward
The narrative that it is racist conservatives who took down Claudine Gay was strongly promoted Tuesday night with an article in Politico. It was so biased, so in-your-face, that I reacted on social media.
Just looking at the headline, I thought, are you effing kidding me? What a load of malarkey. https://t.co/ADMQv6rkPy
— Karen Townsend (@penguinponders) January 3, 2024
Even for Politico, it was too much. As a side note, the Harvard Corporation, which overseas the university, is headed by Penny Pritzker. She is a former Commerce Secretary under President Barack Obama. Both Pritzker and Obama stood by Gay.
The Harvard Corporation said in a statement that it had accepted Gay’s resignation “with sorrow” and praised her “deep and selfless” commitment to the university.
“While President Gay has acknowledged missteps and has taken responsibility for them, it is also true that she has shown remarkable resilience in the face of deeply personal and sustained attacks,” the Harvard Corporation wrote.
“While some of this has played out in the public domain, much of it has taken the form of repugnant and in some cases racist vitriol directed at her through disgraceful emails and phone calls. We condemn such attacks in the strongest possible terms.”
Racist vitriol, eh? How about the fact that she plagiarized at least 47 times, according to the New York Times, just hours before her resignation. Is the New York Times a member of the vast right-wing conspiracy now? It was the plagiarism. The plagiarism took her down. True, it is thanks to the relentless reporting by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative media outlet. That organization took the lead on investigating the plagiarism claims and it did an excellent job.
Gay’s testimony before Congress was horrible, that much is true. She should have resigned once that was over. Reactions to her antisemitism over common decency were swift and the university began to lose big donors. Then, the plagiarism came to light and her goose was cooked. She held on way too long and Harvard enabled her to do it. Does the (alleged) top university in America not care about plagiarism? Or, does it only matter for students, not those who teach or lead the campus?
The officials at Harvard supported Gay until they couldn’t. The op-eds supported her until two student writers for the college newspaper came out against Gay. The plagiarism incidents kept coming. Plagiarism broke the camel’s back. It would have been the same for a white woman. One white woman was immediately forced to resign over her performance during the congressional hearing. Gay testified that day with two white women university presidents. Liz Magill, President of the University of Pennsylvania was gone as soon as that university began to lose big donors. MIT’s President Sally Kornbluth is the last one standing.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) noted the second resignation.
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) praised Harvard President Claudine Gay’s decision to step down from her leadership position over controversy stemming from allegations of plagiarism as well as her hesitant response to condemn the rising trend of antisemitism on university campuses across the country.
Her departure makes her the second college president to resign after a tense exchange with Stefanik in a congressional hearing last month with the presidents from Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania.
“Two down,” Stefanik said in a statement. “Harvard knows that this long overdue forced resignation of the antisemitic plagiarist president is just the beginning of what will be the greatest scandal of any college or university in history.”
While it is the second resignation out of the three, there are still plenty of college and university presidents across the country who were hired to appease diversity demands.
Parts of Gay’s dissertation were plagiarized. Does she keep her title? She will remain on the faculty and that is a disgrace. She is not worthy of teaching now. Certainly not at Harvard. What does her personal behavior teach students? When caught for honor code violations, just cry racism (or sexism or any other ism) and threaten a lawsuit. What leadership.
The craziest part of Gay’s story is that she took Harvard down in just a matter of months. She served a little over six months. That is the shortest term in the university’s history. Good job, everybody.
I’ll end with this. It sums up the nonsensical claims from the left that conservatives are weaponizing plagiarism. When did plagiarism become okay?
Pretty worried about this new chronoweapon that can force you to go back as many as 27 years in time and commit plagiarism. https://t.co/aIbm6h18VT
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) January 3, 2024
