Harvard President Claudine Gay has announced her resignation after a disatrous performance in Congress on campus antisemitism problems and revelations of repeated plagiarism. The CRT-left is fuming with rage, claimaing Gay was a victim of racism.
As I pointed out after hearing of her resignation, Rearranging Chairs On The Sinking Academic Ship – Claudine Gay Is Gone, But The DEI Problems Remain:
The resignation of Claudine Gay and Liz Magill, however, do not end Harvard’s, U. Penn’s, or academia’s underlying problem of an excessive and obsessive focus on race and ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ ideology that is gutting academia. Rearranging administrative chairs on a sinking ship is not the answer.Havard and other Ivy League schools need to jettison not just their Presidents, but the DEI industrial complex that has captured the schools, leading to increased antisemitism, decreased or eliminated academic standards, and conflict.
I had a chance to expand on this theme in an interview with Kevin Hogan this morning on NTD TV (an affiliate of The Epoch Times), Harvard President’s Resignation ‘Symptom of a Deeper Problem’ in Ivy League Schools, Expert Says:
After weeks of criticism related to her comments regarding on-campus anti-Semitism and allegations of plagiarism in her scientific work, Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned on Jan. 2.For an in-depth discussion on Ms. Gay’s resignation, NTD heard from William Jacobson, a Cornell Law School Professor and the founder of The Equal Protection Project.He said it may not be easy for Harvard University to rebuild its reputation given the nature of the allegations made against its president.“It’s very difficult, because she was not the problem,” said Mr. Jacobson. “She was a symptom of a deeper problem at Harvard and many other elite schools, particularly in the Ivy League, which is that they have embraced a racialization of education under the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion.“It is poisonous throughout the system. It takes away from merit, it takes away from advancement of all people equally without regard to race.”
Hogan (00:00): And for an in-depth discussion on Claudine Gay’s resignation, we hear from William Jacobson, a Cornell law professor, and the founder of equal protect.org. Bill, thanks for coming on the show this morning.WAJ (00:10): Thank you for having me.Hogan (00:12): We’ve got a lot to unpack here. We have plagiarism allegations against Gay and also after national backlash. That’s when she distanced herself from that group saying that it was all Israel’s fault, the violence and condemned Hamas. And then it was a heated testimony that caused her to apologize after her remarks on combating antisemitism. Was all that too little, too late and that’s why she resigned?WAJ (00:34): I think it was all of that, but it was also the plagiarism accusations, which were very substantial despite what Harvard says. They were not trivial. And when you have the head of an academic organization, probably the most prestigious in the world, who has credibility problems for her own academics, I think that’s a problem. So I think it was a combination. I don’t think if it was just the antisemitism issue, that she would be gone. I think it was a combination of both.Hogan (01:02): That is really interesting. You point that out. So what does Harvard have to do now to rebuild its public image?WAJ (01:08): It’s very difficult because she was not the problem. She was a symptom of a deeper problem at Harvard and many other elite schools, particularly in the Ivy League, which is that they have embraced a racialization of education under the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. And it is poisonous throughout the system. It takes away from merit. It takes away from advancement of all people equally without regard to race. And she was a big advocate of that. She was the DEI president and that is the deeper problem that I don’t think Harvard or any of the other schools are ready yet to confront.Hogan (01:48): Can you explain the selection process for a school’s president and how it led to a situation like this?WAJ (01:54): It’s really baffling how she became the president of Harvard University. She was not an esteemed scholar. She was not a notable person. Nobody really outside maybe of their little circle had ever heard of her. So it’s really baffling. And I think that lended itself to issues with regard to her credibility. When her scholarship, her paltry scholarship, was called into question. The question became why was she picked? And Harvard’s never given an answer for that. But it wasn’t based on her prior performance or her reputation or her standing in the academic community. And that’s the problem. They selected her for other reasons, and hopefully they will select the next person based on their merit and their credibility and their reputation in the community and not other factors.Hogan (02:43): Right. And Gay said that she was the victim of a racist attack surrounding her resignation here. In your view, does that have anything to do with it?WAJ (02:52): I don’t think so. I mean, the Internet’s a nasty place. We all know that. And I have no doubt that foul and offensive things were probably sent her way as they are to many people who were public figures in this day and age of the internet. But that’s not why she had to resign.She had to resign because of her poor job performance and her inability to communicate, and the fact that she’d become a punchline, a laughing stock. There were all sorts of memes floating around about her plagiarism. So she had lost her credibility. Much like Liz McGill at University of Pennsylvania, although not accused of plagiarism, lost her credibility.So you have two presidents, one white, one black, who were both pressured out of office. I don’t see how you can claim that Claudine Gay was pressured out of office because of her race.Hogan (03:44): Was the questioning by representative Elise Stefanik effective in holding accountable the heads of universities who had a questionable response after the October 7th terrorist attacks?WAJ (03:54): I think it was really an incredible start,it really put a big spotlight on what’s happening on campuses. It can’t be the end of the accountability, but it was the beginning. And I think Elise Stefanik and other members of that committee deserve a lot of praise for putting a spotlight on an issue that those of us on campuses know exists, but really hasn’t been covered by the media and the general public doesn’t know, but they do now. So it was a great first step.Hogan (04:24): And just in a few seconds here, Bill, do you think that Sally Kornbluth, with the president of MIT, is now really questioning what she should do at this stage?WAJ (04:34): It doesn’t look that way. She immediately got full backing of the board at MIT. She has been out of sight, out of mind for the most part. Whether she will come back into sight and mind, I don’t know, but whoever gave her advice to just disappear essentially from the public airwaves and to disappear from public view, probably gave her very good advice. So I don’t know what’s going to happen with her, but she certainly didn’t make the sort of mistakes that the presidents of U Penn and Harvard madeHogan (05:07): Law professor at Cornell. William Jacobson, thank you so much for your time on this.WAJ (05:11): Thank you.
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