I was prepared to write a sympathetic and generous post in response to the resignation of Claudine Gay from the presidency of Harvard University. It must be a crushing blow for her, both personally and professionally. At this moment, I can’t think of a fair analogy from the past in any field: the closest I can come is Richard Nixon’s forced resignation from the American Presidency. She was celebrated as a great trailblazer as the first black and first black female president of the world’s most famous university only a few months ago. Her fall was rapid and ugly.
I an not sympathetic any more, however. Her Unethical Quote of the Month is her resignation letter, which you can read here. It is disgraceful. She never alludes to her failure to adequately address the anti-Semitic and pro-terrorism demonstrations on the Harvard campus. She never mentions her plagiarism in multiple scholarly papers, without which she probably could have survived the criticism arising from her inept testimony in Congress. What she says, in the midst of empty rhetoric about her aspirations and how much she cares about Harvard, is this:
“[I]t 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 — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.”
Because nothing in the letter suggests that she was at fault in any way for the situation she found herself in, that statement amounts to an accusation that racism was behind her demise. That is a lie, and represents a despicable failure to accept accountability.
The Harvard Corporation is runner-up in both the unethical quote and ethics dunce categories. Having disgraced itself in this ethics train wreck by making it clear that it would hold black female fellow progressives to lower standards than Harvard imposes on its own students if it could get away with doing so, the group released a predictable collection of regretful and fawning blather expressing “great sadness” and thanking Gay for her “deep and unwavering commitment to Harvard and to the pursuit of academic excellence.”
Right. Gay has lost Harvard untold millions in contributions with her execution of those “commitments.” Gee, thanks, Claudine!
The Corporation’s letter absurdly and disingenuously defends Gay, claiming she “demonstrated the insight, decisiveness, and empathy that are her hallmark.”
Insight? When she failed miserably to explain what was wrong with students chanting genocidal slogans? Decisiveness? When she tried and failed four times to articulate her position regarding pro-Hamas demonstrations? Empathy? When Harvard’s Jewish students felt like her leadership made them feel unwelcome and threatened on their own school’s campus?
“She believes passionately in Harvard’s mission of education and research, and she cares profoundly about the people whose talents, ideas, and energy drive Harvard,” the statement continued. That’s perfect Leftist cant: what one believes and cares about makes one virtuous.
No, what matters is what one does.
Finally, the letter descends into fantasy, intoning, “She has devoted her career to an institution whose ideals and priorities she has worked tirelessly to advance, and we are grateful for the extraordinary contributions she has made – and will continue to make – as a leader, a teacher, a scholar, a mentor, and an inspiration to many.”
This, on behalf of an institution whose motto is “Veritas.”
Ethics Alarms 
She won’t ride off into the sunset though, MSNBC will offer her a primetime show. Just wait.
Now the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, can hire her for something, give her a prestigious title to elevate her social status and that should give her a nice public soapbox to spew her racist bull shit.
Steve, I just posted a petition on Change.org to draft Obama to be Harvard’s president. It’s perfect, and he owes the school this after pushing Gay into the job. And he is certainly going to be better than anyone else they could find at this point. Sign up and circulate it. I’ll explain my diabolical motives in a bit.
Here’s the link: https://chng.it/MNqhRGbcKQ
Dear God, no! That is all higher education needs. Another vapid individual spouting meaningless platitudes. I have been more inspired by bumper stickers and web memes than anything he had said. On the other hand, maybe Michelle will finally be proud of higher education for the first time in her adult life.
jvb
She’s not wrong. She’s indeed being ousted due to “…personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.”
Specifically attacks and threats on the college’s Jewish population that she explicitly and repetedly supported.
Please stop. For her to scream that racism was a factor is insulting. What did race have to do with U of P’s Pres resigning?
You’ve got to hand it to her, she certainly didn’t leave any doubt as to why she had to resign.
Heh.
“… attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.” First they came for … Then they came for … Then they came for the Jews… Then they came for me?
Yet, no lesson learned by someone soooooo super edjumacated.
The fundamental lesson reenforced to my children – until they realize how much they don’t know, they have not achieved an education.
” … the world’s most famous university … .”
Ah, Harvard, your reputation exceeds you.
Oxford would like a word….
-Jut
Don’t they just made shoes and dictionaries?
And commas.
-Jut
Best of all!
And so would Cambridge. As a grad of Edinburgh, I faltered a bit at Harvard being the most famous university.
Not the best, just the most famous…
Now some commentary claiming she plagiarized parts of her resignation letter:
https://twitchy.com/samj/2024/01/02/claudine-gays-resignation-letter-n2391325
The theory is that the site, “Grammarly” found other copies of the letter on line. But then all letters like that are pretty much the same.
That might be all there is to it….Still funny.
Well, the link you posted is behind the NYT paywall, it seems, or at least they want my email to read the story — fat chance.
So I went to a Boston Globe story on the resignation, and the only part they posted was the paragraph you quoted above.
What really stood out from the Globe’s story was their language, and this is a general complaint, not specific to Gay. Some readers are upset, you might say.
That phrase just stuck out over and over and over again — some scholars, some Jewish students, some Jews, some this, some that, some — Sheesh! Is that what they teach you in journalism school these days?
Some people say the Earth is flat, and you might fall off. Some people say Hitler didn’t die in that bunker. Some people say NASA faked the moon landing.
Enough already. Some people just want to read a decently written story. I guess that is too much to ask.
Ok, rant over. All of you some people can go back to your regularly scheduled bashing and milling about.
Arghh. Damn paywall. Of course for me the Globe is behind a paywall. OK, I’m going to find a non-paywall version
I don’t like this.
Much better would have been for Gay to have remained. A polarizing lightning rod of progressive excess, a lodestone for uncomfortable conversation. Something to grow off of…
Because, let’s be real: Harvard does not care about Anti-Semitism. Harvard does not care about Free Speech. Harvard does not care about plagiarism. Harvard does not care about merit. In fact, Claudine Gay is everything that Harvard stands for: She is a barely credited plagiarist who fulfilled all of Harvard’s needs up until very recently by being a black woman with the requisite fig leaf of Harvardity gained by being a professor for a barely transitory period of time before being skyrocketed to academic heights that would give the average person of her academic stature an abusive head trauma injury.
Really: Claudine Gay should have been more than safe to remain in her comfy, cash-padded office until the next time Harvard was looking for Progress Points™ and went searching for a Native American, trans-non-binary demi-girl in a wheelchair, because what was she really doing wrong, in their eyes, anyway?
But Icaria flew too close to the sun, and her wax wings waned in the oppressive heat of donor outrage, deprived of the soothing cooling derived from cold cash influxes…. And…. Now what?
Nothing changes. She nailed it when she wrote this:
“But, after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.”
Progressives hold no value in individuals. In their minds, anyone could do anything if given the opportunity. That, coupled with women of color being a disenfranchised class leads them to believe that it is best to find a black woman and give her the job. That is literally and figuratively as deep as they get…. Perhaps, if faced with the abundance of two or three black women as applicants, they may compare and contrast the merits between them.
Shitcanning such a black woman is only a problem if they cannot easily replace her with another, and so being able to influence that appointment is orders of magnitude more important than the person holding the position: Gay’s resignation was designed to maintain their power structure by giving the donors a scalp, a pound of flesh, hoping that so ameliorated, they may find Harvard as good a place as any once again to seek shelter from the storms of taxation, and allowing the inmates to continue running the asylum. Which means that the next President of Harvard will invariably be another ideologue of color, because replacing a mediocre black woman with any white person is pure anathema to the ideologically incarcerated, and we will have accomplished nothing except sawing a head off the hydra.
That’s a reaction many will agree with, even me, if I wanted Harvard to crash and burn. And it richly deserves to. I think it was the student reactions as revealed in the Crimson that made her position untenable. Ot maybe she reads Ethics Alarms…
Replacing her will be chore. If they pick another black woman, she will be immediately branded not just a DEI pick, but second choice DEI pick. If Harvard defaults to a white Prez, they are racists and retreating from DEI.
I want them to pick Barack Obama. It would be great for Harvard PR, even the most dedicated DEI nuts can’t attack that choice, and it will shut Obama up for the upcoming election. He got Harvard into this mess—the Harvard Corp. is full of his lackeys, and he lobbied to keep her in office.
It will cost him money, and it will make him show what he can do in a job less challenging than the one he botched in DC.
Come on—sign my Change.Org petition “Draft Barack Obama to be the President of Harvard University” and get the word around. The link is https://chng.it/dcCNDHDkXx
I think a big response will drive O crazy.
I’m just gonna put this out there:
Yup. That’s what Harvard faces. That is the bed it made for itself.
Maybe Humble Talent is trying to say it should be Michelle Obama who shall run the Veritas Machine.
She would be a great fit, but she has none of the credentials Harvard requires for the job…except, apparently, being black and female. Even Harvard can’t get away with just that, however.
Michelle Obama would fit the DEI requirement, ¿no? But, really, the only acceptable choice will be Black, nonbinary, gender fluid, Muslim, quadriplegic transmale woman.
jvb
Yup. Condoleezza Rice would be great. Our, perhaps Dr. Swain, Gay’s “mentor.”
jvb
OK, I signed. Of course, the very first thing they do after you sign a petition is ask you for money. Ugh.
Looking at one of the other petitions there — wouldn’t you think that if you were starting a petition protesting book bans, you might be able to spell the book’s title correctly? Nope, that would be asking too much. That sound you hear is me grinding my last tooth…..
I figure this petition has a chance to catch on because it’s written in English…
I signed, though I believe Karine Jean-Pierre is more qualified – in DIE terms – than President Obama, because she ticks that “I’m a woman” box.
Thanks.I’ll get my post up on this quickly.
I can understand your point. Having people like Gay in charge of prestigious schools will only show how silly and stupid DEI policies really are, much like the way COVID19 exposed the progressive cant taught in schools.
jvb