Home » Claudine Gay resigns the Harvard presidency

Comments

Claudine Gay resigns the Harvard presidency — 72 Comments

  1. She will be a martyr for the DEI/Woke crowd and look for her to get a job at MSNBC.

  2. I assume that Harvard will eventually just find another DEI… er sorry, DIE acolyte to serve as their president. But they’ll be a bit more circumspect about it, vetting the academic record of the potential candidates a bit more carefully as well as finding someone who is better at dissembling under scrutiny.

    But despite that, I’ll chalk this up for a win overall for the forces of sanity and reason over the anti civilization forces.

  3. She won’t need the MSNBC gig. The left takes care of its own. She will have a faculty or administrative position of some consequence somewhere, well-compensated.
    ==
    Tyler Cowen complains about the mediocrity of the board without acknowledging how boards fail: by failing to suppress the institutional pathology generated by the faculty, the student affairs apparat, the admissions office, and the HR staff.

  4. I assume that Harvard will eventually just find another DEI… er sorry, DIE acolyte to serve as their president.

    The likelihood that it will be another black woman has to be approaching 100%. Maybe gay, maybe not, but anyone other than a black woman and Trump wins, or something.

  5. For now she’s rejoining the faculty, where I’m sure she’ll be welcomed with open arms.

    Has Harvard learned any lesson? Doubtful, but even if it has, it’s not clear there’s any mechanism at all for cleaning house by ousting anyone from the Corporation. It’s like the Israeli Supreme Court, entirely self-perpetuating with seemingly no accountability.

  6. She’s going into the faculty…just great.. a serial plagiarist teaching college kids. I know what would have happened to me if I had that level of plagiarism. But then, kinda hard for me to steal data that no one had produced before.

    I had alums, students, and board members trying to fire me because they didn’t like my views on climate. The claim was I was not a legitimate scientist because I presented logical, physics based arguments against AGW.

  7. The Board of Trustees are responsible for this travesty. University Boards are focused on the rate of return on the endowments and who manages the huge cash hoards. Dr. James Mullin wrote a enlightening article over at American Thinker “Taking the Fight to Academia “11/17/2023. Non profit boards are controlled by progressives. Once one is elected by the Board they make a beeline to sit on the nominating committee, then reproduce like rabbits! Academic excellence is replaced by political correctness and demand for grant money.

  8. Maybe they’ll make the effort to find someone who is actually an academic, and otherwise does not lie, cheat, and exhibit outright bigotry?

  9. I’ll reiterate: a possible tonic might be to have modest boards (5-19 members, contingent on the stakeholder population) consisting of and elected by alumni registered to vote in the state in which the institution is headquartered. Posit such balloting would be supervised by state and county boards of elections, would occur always on the year preceding a federal presidential election, that trustees so elected would serve four year terms, and that their tenure would be subject to a rotation-in-office rule (e.g. persons who have served for 14 of the last 16 years or would hit that wall in the coming term are compelled to stand down). A board made up of 13 business and professional types living in greater Boston might look more skeptically than the current board on the miasma the faculty and others generate. A board of a dozen members meeting monthly might be more likely to act than one of 63 members whose attendance is spotty.

  10. Maybe they’ll make the effort to find someone who is actually an academic
    ==
    Hire an elderly or retired man from the world of business, the military, or hospital administration. Don’t hire one of the faculty. Hire someone who might just dislike the faculty.

  11. I would say great, one down 1,000 to go. But as mentioned above her replacement won’t be any better.
    With the plagiarism charges she shouldn’t be teaching at all, but as they say “It’s Harvard”

  12. Karine Jean-Pierre might be a perfect fit for Harvard: black lesbian willing to lie about anything.

  13. . Non profit boards are controlled by progressives.
    ==
    Well, we might just ask our Republican state legislators why they don’t have bills on deck to require trustees appointed by a self-regeneration procedure

    1. be limited in number,
    2. reside within a few hours drive of an organization’s headquarters,
    3. not be permitted on any board of any corporation founded > 60 years ago.
    4. be supplemented with trustees elected by stakeholder bodies from the time a corporation reaches the 20th anniversary of its founding, if not earlier.

    ==

    Other rules:
    ==
    (1) corporations be debarred by law from making grants and donations (in the form of cash, other negotiable instruments, real property, equipment, comestibles) unless such donations are expressly permitted by the state’s corporation law.
    ==
    (2) the franchise to make grants and donations would be limited to specific subtypes of corporation, and each subtype so permitted could make donations only to parties of a sort specified in law. By way of example, political parties could donate to campaign committees and contribution bundlers could donate to campaign committees and that exhausts who either parties could donate to. Specifically charitable (not generically philanthropic) corporations and religious corporations could donate to individuals and private households and religious corporations could bundle donations to charitable corporations, but that would be it. “Charitable” corporations would be understood as those providing food, shelter, and first aid along with miscellaneous services.
    ==
    (3) there would be one type of corporation – ‘foundations’ – which would be permitted one function only: to make donations to other philanthropic bodies. Foundations would be compelled to liquidate under the supervision of a surrogate’s court within 60 years of their incorporation with their capital returned to donors and / or divvied up among service-providing philanthropic bodies.
    ==
    (4) The definition of stakeholder bodies would be defined by law and the supervision of elections to boards by stakeholders would be by public agencies.

  14. Claudine Gay is but a symptom of the rot in our universities. Dissertation supervisors and academic journals are supposed to thoroughly examine papers submitted to them before approving them. Yes, Claudine Gay plagiarized, and perhaps worse. But it was the duty of those examining her papers to detect plagiarism and other violations of academic standards. They did not. In not taking the effort to thoroughly examine her papers, they did her a disfavor.

    Naomi Wolf’s doctoral dissertation at Oxford, which she later turned into a book, claimed that “death recorded” indicated there were executions of homosexuals in 19th century England, when the term meant that a death sentence was being recorded, not necessarily carried out. An Author Learned of a Mortifying Research Mistake Live on the Radio. Here’s How Twitter Reacted. A historian on a radio show caught the error, but her dissertation advisors did not.

    Consider Hannah Nicole Jone’s 1619, published in the NYT. Historians caught numerous errors. I took only one history course in college, but I was able to catch several errors in five minutes of skimming 1619. Here is one.

    The wealth and prominence that allowed Jefferson, at just thirty-three, and the other founding fathers to believe they could successfully break off from one of the mightiest empires in the world came in part from the dizzying profits generated by chattel slavery

    Jefferson died in debt. His debt was paid off, but it took 50 years. So much for “dizzying profits.” If I had submitted that as a history paper in college, I would have deserved a C+: A for volume, D for research errors. The editors at the NYT, who thought they were giving Hannah Nicole Jones a break by not thoroughly examining her work, actually did her a disfavor.

    Claudine Gay’s testimony showed the hypocrisy of Harvard’s administration, which bent over backwards not to condemn the anti-Semitism of Hamas supporters on campus, while Harvard “won” the lowest free speech ratings on colleges and universities in the country. Harvard gets worst score ever in FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings

    First of all, Harvard, which on paper commits to protecting free speech, has a dismal record of responding to deplatforming attempts — attempts to sanction students, student groups, scholars, and speakers for speech protected under First Amendment standards. Of nine attempts in total over the past five years, seven resulted in sanction.
    For each of these seven incidents, Harvard was penalized in the rankings:
    • From 2019 to this year, Harvard sanctioned four scholars, three of whom it terminated.
    • In 2020, Harvard revoked conservative student activist Kyle Kashuv’s acceptance over comments he made on social media as a 16-year-old, for which he had since apologized.
    • In 2022, Harvard disinvited feminist philosopher Devin Buckley from an English department colloquium on campus over her views on gender and trans issues.
    • In 2019, Harvard was the site of a substantial event disruption when protesters interrupted a joint talk featuring former Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow and Graduate School of Education Dean Bridget Terry Long by occupying the stage and refusing to leave.
    Harvard also performed very poorly on a number of the survey-based components of the College Free Speech Rankings, ranking 193 out of 254 on “Comfort Expressing Ideas,” 183 on “Administrative Support,” and 198 on “Disruptive Conduct.” This is reflected in student survey responses. For instance, just over a quarter of Harvard students reported they are comfortable publicly disagreeing with their professor on a controversial political topic; only roughly a third think it is “very” or “extremely” clear the administration protects free speech on campus; and an alarming 30% think using violence to stop a campus speech is at least “rarely” acceptable, an increase from the 26% of Harvard students who felt this way last year.

    While Claudine Gay did her part to earn Harvard those poor ratings on free speech, I very much doubt that her resignation will do much to improve free speech at Harvard. After all, most of the above free speech issues at Harvard predate her 6 months as President of Harvard.

    The rot is too widespread. Claudine Gay is not the cause, but a symptom.

    The Board that hired her should resign.

  15. I’ve added an ADDENDUM at the end of the post.
    ==
    I suspect most of the people who run consequential institutions in this country are sociopaths.

  16. Geez. Can’t conservatives take a win and enjoy it?

    No, Gay’s resignation doesn’t restore Reagan’s “Morning in America” in one fell swoop. Nor even take us back to 2000.

    It’s just one game in the season, plenty more to go, but we won this and it may — knock on wood — presage further victories.

    Really. One difference I find between the Left and the Right is that the Left always blows on whatever sparks of change it finds and hopes for the best.

    The Right just harrumphs and says, “OK. But this won’t change anything.”

    If one has any notion of how humans work, this is stupid.

  17. In the last two or three weeks, I stated the bet that President Gay would be gone by New Years. And physicsguy gamely stated he’d take that bet! (Fortunately, for me, we didn’t set terms, and rhus I suppose it was all about bragging rights.)

    Through the last two holiday weekends, the issue festered.

    Notably, Roger Kimble in the Spectator averred that keeping her in place was the best for America because she epitomized the gut rot of DIE. And hurting Harvard through rank hypocrisy helps America.(But does it? really?)

    In another development, last week two dissenting editorial board members of the Harvard Crimson took to its pages demanding her resignation because of her egregious plagiarism.

    Thus, I was tempted to write a decent concession to physicsguy to post here — but with an asterisk that this scandal would somehow continue.

    But instead I spent the weekend with acutr Juniper tree allergies and college football championships at stake — two more important matters than this one, to be sure.

    It’s maybe 6 hours after the announcement, so I’m late to the not unexpected party.

    How she’s remembered remains the important talking point. With the people on the board, headed by a trans activist billionaire named Pritzker, I expect the fallout to get uglier

    Anyone care to bet against me?

    The roundup from Zerohedge:
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/harvards-gay-hit-new-plagiarism-allegations-widespread-double-standards-exposed-elite

  18. Anyone want to bet that most of the DEI faculty has committed the same or worse academic fraud that Gay is guilty of? She didn’t do it in a vacuum and had to have a lot of willing help to get to the top. Every one that helped her should get the boot too, though it won’t happen.

  19. leClerc —

    You beat me to it! But on a serious note, that fact that anyone — you OR me — would think that she might have plagiarized her letter of resignation just demonstrates that she has cheapened the position. Now both she and Harvard have been damaged. Sad.

  20. huxley:

    That’s not what the right is saying; not the people I’ve read, anyway. It’s certainly not what I’m saying. I’m saying this is a step, and the next steps would be this, and this, and this, and this. It’s a battle in a long war. I’m referring, by the way, to this post of mine, also written and published today. Here’s a quote:

    Wolpe doesn’t offer a roadmap for changing this situation, and I can hardly fault him. Both post-modern anti-colonial theory and anti-Semitism are deeply entrenched at Harvard and elsewhere, and are particularly influential in young adults who have been macerated in these poisonous ideologies for much of their schooling and certainly their college years. The universities are loaded with tenured professors who are dedicated to this indoctrination of our youth, as well as administrators with the same beliefs. The overhaul needed is immense, and the voting public has already been tainted by these philosophies.

    Colleges and universities therefore have no will to change this. The push has to come from outside: state legislatures (although that will only happen in red states), Congress if and only if Republicans take over with a fairly large margin rather than a small one, individual donors ending gifts, parents sending their children to schools that don’t teach this sort of thing, and the like. It’s certainly not just about anti-Semitism, although that’s an important factor. It’s about the future of Western civilization and the world.

  21. If it hadn’t been for Elise Stefanik’s questions of the three university presidents, none of this would have happened.

    Well, well. Score one for Upstate!

  22. Now Harvard “leaders” are praised her to high heavens, and said it was racism.
    These people are not really self aware.

  23. SHIREHOME:

    As I predicted – and as was easy to predict – Gay will be used as a martyr and it will be said that racists drove her out.

    She is more useful to the left having resigned than she was in the presidency. I believe she will be replaced with someone dedicated to similar goals, but with a less fraught history.

  24. “it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am

    Right there she reveals her utter lack of integrity, willingness to offer insult to our intelligence and unfitness for any position of leadership.

    Just her manifold plagiarisms demand ostracization from any future position in academia. 50+ instances of plagiarism are indisputable evidence of willful intent.

    So whether Harvard keeps her on or wherever she might next reside, her very presence will confirm both that institutions own lack of integrity and their actual rejection of “scholarly rigor”.

  25. “Why is your distress more important than answering the charges?”

    You know the answer to that one Boss…
    Because she ticks so many intersectional boxes. She is Affirmative Action from hair ends to toenails. And she’s just one of many who need to receive the same treatment toward the same end. Incompetent, arrogant, & believably unethical are no way to pass through this life, but she’s trying.

  26. If she had NOT cried ‘RACISM’, I truly would have been shocked. And while it’s good to see some consequences here, Neo is right that Gay will surely be lionized and will monetize this accordingly.

    Furthermore, there are a seemingly inexhaustible supply of Claudine Gay’s out there, some of who might not have plagiarized (or did so more artfully). Surely Harvard’s next President will just be a cookie cutter version of her, but likely more mindful of any potential congressional testimony)

  27. That’s not what the right is saying; not the people I’ve read, anyway. It’s certainly not what I’m saying.

    neo:

    I wasn’t singling you out. I was immediately thinking of this earlier comment:
    ________________________________

    Nothingburger. Gay was appointed and defended by the Harvard corp and others. If they are forced out, that would mean something.

    –Jim
    ________________________________

    Or a classic example from Gerard, which perhaps I took too personally, when I had the audacity to suggest that Joe Biden’s Insane Afghan Bugout might redound against against Democrats. Gerard responded that I should do something scatological with my hands and realize my foolishness.

    But this, your, post is still something of an example. In your first paragraph and the later ones you quote, you immediately rush in to qualify any optimism about Gay’s resignation.

    Where is the enjoyment, the celebration of a win? I see the lack thereof constantly in this blog and elsewhere.

    To go Tony Robbins and make my point vividly and thereby sound stupid:
    ____________________________________

    If you feel Claudine Gay’s resignation is a win, make a fist and say, “YEAH!”
    ____________________________________

    When I was on the Left we always celebrated our wins, however small. I don’t see that much on the Right.

    Yes, this is a long fight. We have to keep our spirits up to continue.

  28. The interim president of penn jameson (not j jonah) was all dei on the medical school

  29. @huxley: Fist raised, shouting YEAH! Mentally, that is, as I’ve got a cough.

    It’s going to continue to be a fight, but DEI is finally becoming something they have to try to hide, rather than preaching it out loud everywhere.

  30. huxley:

    I think you’re correct that these days the right is not celebratory enough when there’s a win. I think it’s because the Gramscian march just seems so very well advanced. And I think you’re correct that more celebration of even the small wins is needed.

    Like the Jews on Purim:

    There is an ancient and widespread custom that when the name of Haman is mentioned during the Megillah reading on Purim, the congregation (especially the children) spin graggers (ratchets), bang, shout, stamp their feet and generally make a ruckus.

    As for Gerard – as you know, now and then he exercised his flame war muscles. Probably nothing personal at all.

  31. Marc Lamont Hill tweets, “The next president of Harvard University MUST be a Black woman.” Probably, but I suspect Harvard will drag its feet for a while before naming a new head. Maybe they’ll even take the time to vet their next leader.

    Somebody said Obama should take the job, but that’s not going to happen. I always figured Buttigieg would eventually become a college president and parlay that into a House seat. I thought Connecticut or Pennsylvania would be more likely. He’s not Irish enough to make a political career in Boston.

  32. Has anyone noticed that “navigate” seems to be the word du jour….

    …the new definition, of which goes something like “…BS my/our way through…”

  33. The obvious unequal weight and measures put this unqualified ethically challenged faculty member into a prominent leadership position in the ivy leagues.

  34. So Ms. (not really a PhD) Gay is a lying, plagiarizing, free speech thwarting, DEI scumbag; and thus she had no business being selected as President (or even a TA) at Harvard;
    but
    That does not mean she was wrong in her answer to Elise Stefanik. Free speech constitutional protections do depend on the “context”. And at a private university those protections* are pretty solid against governmental “corrections” or preferences. [Or they should still be.]

    But the marketplace of ideas and public assessments does extend beyond the campus to the wider public, donors, alumni, et al. So let’s take that win as related to her many failings for her position, but (as I understand it) her weaselly testimony to Congress just so happened to be constitutionally valid.

    And if Rep. Stefanik rises in the House as a result of this imbroglio, in spite of being off center on this particular 1st Amendment right, all to the good as she seems to have more spine than some of her male colleagues.

    *Protecting the Jewish or Palestinian students and visitors on the campus from harassment or physical assault (and genocide) is/was also part of her remit, but that was not the situation involving hypothetical speech about genocide.

  35. R2L:

    The problem with the point you make is that free speech doesn’t exist at Harvard except for those calling for the destruction of Jews. If someone ever called for genocide against blacks or gays or any other group but Jews, you better believe that Harvard speech codes would have them tossed out on their ear, pronto.

    That is the problem with what Gay said.

  36. A quick survey of reaction on YouTube. Of note, Alan Dershowitz was FIRST to declare that she’s resign if more wrongdoing came out:

    Weeks ago, Alan Dershowitz predicted trouble if more on Gay came out..
    On Kudlow, FoxBusiness, who credits Washington Free Beacon’s old fashioned diligence on the plagiarism angle for this result..
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbKua2w0hcI

    “Harvard Law Professor-Emeritus Alan Dershowitz reacts to the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay” on ‘Kudlow.’
    ——

    Harvard University student Shabbos Kestenbaum reacts to Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation and the fallout following the announcement, Fox Business. He credits Harvard students pushback against the administration who just want to learn, not be activists.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_wxnim66pY
    ___

    THE FIVE Harvard president cites racism as fuel for resignation, on Fox News reaction to Gay’s Resignation as Harvard President. New clip today of Congresswoman Stefanik on Gay’s failings leads off the discussion.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0jjuPrMzyo

    Much shame and castigation on Gay for making it about race, and not taking responsibility herself.
    ____
    “Does Gay’s resignation mark the end of DEI?”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K5rutdeX1k

    The Dershowitz finds Alan in fine form, he calls for an impartial investigation of this scandal. Tuesday, 30m. One choice comment: “It is time for Thomas Sowell to be the next Harvard president.”

  37. Some posts addressing a few of the comments raised herein.

    https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/12/31/dissent-gay-plagiarism/
    “Dissent: For Harvard’s Sake, It’s Time to Let Gay Go”
    Dissenting Opinions: Occasionally, The Crimson Editorial Board is divided about the opinion we express in a staff editorial. In these cases, dissenting board members have the opportunity to express their opposition to staff opinion.

    (Most of you probably know that the official staff position was to praise Gay and dismiss the plagiarism evidence as unimportant.)

    https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/12/31/honor-council-member-gay/
    “I Vote on Plagiarism Cases at Harvard College. Gay’s Getting off Easy.”
    By An Undergraduate Member of the Harvard College Honor Council, Contributing Opinion Writer

    https://jewishinsider.com/2023/12/speaking-to-president-gay-harvard-chabad-rabbi-blasts-schools-handling-of-antisemitism/

    https://jewishinsider.com/2024/01/root-problem-of-antisemitism-at-harvard-remains-after-gay-resignation-jewish-leaders-say/

  38. @ Barry > “Argue Honesty in the Claudine Gay Affair”

    There were several interesting sections of Cochrane’s post that I hadn’t seen before, especially some of the testimony excerpts other than the justly-derided ones about antisemitism at Harvard.

    In particular, he notes several extensive examples of how to not respond to the actual question that was asked — something we have all seen in other Congressional hearings.
    If the Democrats don’t learn anything else, they certainly have mastered that skill.

    I think Harvard should fire Claudine Gay. But not for the reasons her critics are emphasizing, including Congressional testimony, public statements after October 7, and charges of plagiarism. Come on now, you don’t really think she’s a wonderful president doing a fantastic job, and it’s too bad we have to fire her over copied and pasted sentences in her thesis.

    The larger goal is to reform the university. Being honest about the reasons for firing her matters to that goal.

    Only a more honest firing will cure Harvard and her cousins. Forcing Harvard to get rid of her, ostensibly for failings that though real are also clearly a pretext, will not force Harvard to look hard in the mirror and make the choice I and Harvard’s critics want.

    Gay is exactly what Harvard wanted, and a look-alike is exactly what it will get unless it wants something different.

    But this isn’t about free speech.

    “Speech” had already turned in to “conduct” well before the hearing. Harassment of Jews — Jews, not just pro-Israel protesters — was already routine on campus. Interruptions of classes and occupation of library and other spaces was already going on. And Harvard and the others didn’t do anything about it — though you can be sure if similar opinions were being expressed by men in white sheets the reaction would have been swift and brutal.

    The hypocrisy is evident. Oh now you’re for free speech and academic freedom, yet not for the tiny micro aggressions that had earned disciplinary responses before.

    The issue is, how in the world did Harvard university end up accepting, hiring, and promoting, so many people who, given the opportunity to speak freely, do so in defense of murder, rape, and terrorism? How did Harvard become such a monoculture of far left-wing politics?

    And, it turns out in the full record, the Congresspeople got all that. Selective free speech: [excerpt]

    The lesson of Democrat-speak in action:

    It turns out President Gay is superb at not answering questions and going off on a rant of boilerplate.

    Politcal Diversity:

    JOE WILSON: …What is the percentage of conservative professors at your institutions? …

    CLAUDINE GAY: Thank you, Congressman. So, I can’t provide you that statistic because it’s not data that we collect. ..

    LIZ MAGILL: Representative, I strongly believe in a wide variety of perspectives. We do not track that information, so I can’t give that to you.

    SALLY KORNBLUTH: We do not document people’s political views, but conservatives are welcome to teach on our campus.

    JOE WILSON: And I think this is so sadly and shamefully revealing that there is no diversity and inclusion of intellectual thought…. And you might look into that when you get your next government grant.

    Again, beautiful lawyerly obfuscation. Because numbers are easily available. For example, voter registration data, which shows astounding democrat/republican ratios on campus. And the huge DEI bureaucracy, which collects detailed data on refined racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender identities, has plenty of time on its hands, could easily collect data on political identity. “Why not?” would be a good question!

    Stanford’s DEI (“IDEAL”) website statement on the value of diversity, proclaims

    At Stanford, we strive to ensure that a diversity of cultures, races and ethnicities, genders, political and religious beliefs, physical and learning differences, sexual orientations and identities is thriving on our campus.

    Nice. But outside this statement, zero effort to even measure the size of the donkey in the room. (The elephant got canceled.)

    “And you might look into that when you get your next government grant” is a fascinating comment. Right now many granting agencies are requiring diversity statements, diversity programs, some even acknowledging “native ways of knowing,” as part of an “all of government” effort. That could change with the next election. Or with a congressional committee that hauls in heads of agencies to answer the same sorts of questions.

    The next exchange also focuses on the political monoculture issue,

    This is a brilliant lesson in obfuscation. Note to self if ever testifying before a hostile committee. Just lie. Over and over bigger and bigger. “ I can’t speak to the specific data that you are referring to.” Of course you can. You’re a quantitative political scientist who reads the newspapers. “We want the most brilliant, talented faculty to come to Harvard and to build their careers there.” “We try to create as much space as possible for a wide range of views and perspectives.” Ha!

    In re the “Conservatives are welcome” lies, see my next comment.

    Back to the Cochrane post:

    I quote at length because the merry go round of refusing to answer the question and repeatedly asserting a false boilerplate about recruiting is so brilliantly executed.

    Enough. Yes, Gay must go. But don’t let them say so sorry, you copied and pasted an abstract during the literature review in your thesis, and you fudged some numbers, you were wonderful but we have to let you go for these little transgressions. Don’t let them paper over the murderous anti-semitism and continue the march thorough the institution. Don’t let them continue to undermine the foundations of our best universities, ripping out meritocracy, exams, actual competence, academic freedom, and pursuit of truth. Fire her for doing her job well, but we want someone to do a different job!

    Yes, I know this is unrealistic, and not how political decisions are made. Still, the larger point remains. Firing Gay over plagiarism and data fudging, and sending Stanford’s 20 person committee to put in a replacement will not bring about the change we need.

    Back to the beginning (well, not the beginning-beginning, but analogous to it) of the problem at Harvard, in an addendum:

    When students started complaining about feeling “unsafe” because Sullivan provided Weinstein with a legal defense, they could have told students to grow up and handled any other issues separately.

  39. Conservatives are NOT welcome at the universities, nor in many other professions.
    See the linked story from this comment, and look at all the time-frame graphs it cites, showing the ideological lopsidedness everywhere.

    https://www.thenewneo.com/2024/01/01/roundup-98/#comment-2716201
    AesopFan on January 2, 2024 at 12:36 am said:
    About those predictions …
    https://notthebee.com/article/this-med-student-compiled-graphs-showing-how-different-professions-have-shifted-far-left-over-the-past-decades-the-one-about-doctors-really-surprised-me-

  40. Ed Driscoll – A reaction to a screencapped tweet I can’t copy, but it’s great gaslighting from Nicole Hannah-Jones aka Ida Bae Wells.

    https://instapundit.com/624752/
    JANUARY 2, 2024
    ELISE STEFANIK AS BOND SUPERVILLAIN:

    [TWEET]

    Flashback:

    No, Dr. Gay.

    You were given an opportunity to speak your truth. And you did.

    Not once.
    Not twice
    Not 5x.
    Not 10x

    I asked you 17x(!!!) in the hearing about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates @Harvard code of conduct.

    You spoke your truth under oath 17x. And…

    — Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) December 8, 2023

    And then — I know this will be shocking to a New York Times staffer — journalism began to occur:

    The President of Harvard has resigned after being exposed as a serial plagiarist and unethical charlatan by @realChrisBrunet, @realchrisrufo, and @aaronsibarium among others.

    Job well done!

    — Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) January 2, 2024

    Exit quote:

    Republicans claim victory for Harvard president’s resignation https://t.co/uGLveRKhwf

    — POLITICO (@politico) January 2, 2024

    Their source was the New York Times, to coin a phrase.

    UPDATE:

    New York Times thinks asking university leaders to condemn calls for genocide against Jews is a “prosecutorial trap” pic.twitter.com/gXeUSsZMRT

    — Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) January 2, 2024

    Mitchell and Webb should update their “Are we the baddies?” sketch, with the other Nazi replying, “Well Fritz, to be honest, it depends on the context.”

  41. Yes, Harvard got exactly what they wanted: the merit and qualifications they asked for were front and center:
    https://freebeacon.com/media/flashback-media-rave-about-harvards-groundbreaking-choice-of-claudine-gay-as-president/

    Thaleigha Rampersad
    January 2, 2024
    Harvard University president Claudine Gay resigned Tuesday amid mounting allegations of plagiarism in her academic work. When Gay was initially announced as Harvard’s new president in December 2022, mainstream media outlets raved about the diversity she would bring to the elite university. Outlets touted her as the “daughter of Haitian immigrants” and the “first person of color” to hold the office of president at Harvard.

    Gay’s tenure as president was the shortest in Harvard history.

  42. You know, I haven’t actually followed this story all that closely. It’s all just too stupid to take too seriously. Just now reading the lead editorial in today’s WSJ where they quote from her original apology. She says that in her testimony to congress she “failed to convey what is my truth.”
    Now there’s one of your interview questions for her replacement right there. “Have you ever used the phrase “my truth” in any way that wasn’t sarcastic?”

  43. “Truth?

    You want the truth?

    You can’t handle my truth!”

    From some movie or someone’s sworn testimony. Who you gonna believe, me, or your lyin’ eyes? ….

  44. The problem comes down to this: our professional-managerial stratum is chock-a-block with chronic liars. This is most intensely so in the world of higher education. I don’t think this was the case 80 years ago. How did this happen?

  45. Marc Lamont Hill tweets, “The next president of Harvard University MUST be a Black woman.”
    ==
    Cue Mandy Rice Davies.

  46. Gay was lousy, even worse than Obama.
    It was Obama’s nomination that changed the direction of racism in America. It had been going down, with the ideal of color blindness. MLK’s great words to judge people on their character, not the color of their skin.
    With Obama, every single critic of any of his policies was called a racist.

    Dems effectively weaponized the accusations of racism. Tho only against those who oppose Dem Blacks.

    Thanks for Grumpy on substack, changing just a few weeks ago, still free.
    https://www.grumpy-economist.com/p/welcome-to-substack
    He has his own domain.

    Neo should change, too, so as to make a LOT more money, and get more comments, with more links by others who are worthy—worth your time to read, and more comments.
    So many comments it becomes a different community. I’m spending most of my blog time there, making comments on other stacks, which become Notes that one can see on my substack Notes page.
    I still don’t like podcasts much.

    I’m glad Gay is gone. Colleges which illegally discriminate against hiring Republicans should lose tax exemptions. Those with less than 30% Reps should be presumed guilty of discrimination for the purpose of gaining a tax benefit.

  47. Conservatives are NOT welcome at the universities, nor in many other professions. See the linked story from this comment, and look at all the time-frame graphs it cites, showing the ideological lopsidedness everywhere.
    ==
    I’m somewhat skeptical of his data. One feature is the disappearance of people who aren’t taking a side.

  48. According to a comment on Fox Business this morning, Gay retains a teaching position and her $900,000 salary. Some victim.

  49. I didn’t find out about this until watching Gutfeld last night, but is anybody else bothered by the fact that Gay is Haitian and not African-American? We were guilted into accepting affirmative action because it allegedly was to “remedy “past discrimination but someone like Gay we owe nothing to. she’s just cutting in line like Rosie Ruiz.

  50. That’s one of the things that is so insulting about DEI. “Black” people are all the same in their view. Gay is the child of Haitian immigrants and did not grow up poor. Barack Obama is half Kenyan. Kamala Harris is half Jamaican and half Tamil.

  51. Its a thorough going racket enabled by every professor i remember with hilton kramer i think pointing out skip gates for attacking the canon of western classics back in the 80s (now hes as respectable as morgan freeman)

  52. Claudine Gay was not only not “oppressed,” she was privileged. The president of UPenn resigned over the congressional testimony. She’s white. It took the additional scrutiny of Gay’s thin and plagiarized academic output to take her down.

  53. Re: Celebration

    neo, Mike Plaiss, AesopFan et tout le monde:

    I don’t mean to beat it into the ground but celebration is important for homo sapiens. Life is hard. Getting something, anything done is HARD.

    Life deals us mostly SORRY! cards. Yet we must keep going. For that one must have a vision and the means to maintain motivation.

    So if you see something Good happening, Celebrate! For that moment anyway. No, it’s not over. Yes, you will have to return to the grind of pushing through to the next step.

    Saul Alinsky, another of Satan’s Imps to be sure, but if you read his “Rules for Radicals,” you will note he never lost sight of opportunities for his followers to enjoy their work for the Movement.

    Speaking for myself and bragging a bit, I’ve studied French everyday for 4-6 hours for over a year now. I couldn’t have done this when I was younger because then I was constantly doubting myself and focusing on how much further I had to go.

    Now I stay aware and when I notice progress:

    Make a fist and say “YES!”

  54. its like when they take down the first walker in empire, the schadenfreude level is off the charts,

  55. Rome wasn’t dismantled in a dayhttps://twitter.com/sfmcguire79/status/1742639530069348784

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>