A few miscellaneous thoughts on former Harvard president Claudine Gay:
- An awful lot of conservatives have attacked Gay as unqualified for the Harvard presidency because she isn't an academic star. This is crazy. Presidents of R1 universities aren't hired for their academics. They're hired to raise money and run the place. Big university presidents aren't commonly academic stars.
- On the other side, a lot of liberals are agog that Christopher Rufo publicly explained his strategy to target universities generally and to get Gay fired specifically, but everyone fell for it anyway. But politicos on both the left and right do this all the time and then crow when they succeed. It's not as if it's a big mystery anyway. Everyone knows which side supports what stuff.
- There's nothing new to this attack on universities. Conservatives have been gunning for academia for the past 60 years, ever since academia broadly turned from being conservative to liberal. Remember William F. Buckley's famous comment, “I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty"? That was in 1961.
- There's a narrative on the left that Gay was attacked not primarily for plagiarism but because she's a Black woman. Gay herself nods in this direction. This is supposed to be part of a broad attack on women and minorities in positions of power, and that might be true. But I'd sure like to see some evidence.
- It doesn't matter if Gay's plagiarism was uncovered by conservatives with ulterior motives. That happens all the time with whistleblowers. What matters is whether they uncovered something true. In this case they did, though I continue to have doubts about whether sentence-level copying should be such a big deal.
- Computers make it fairly easy to search documents for potential plagiarism. I would like to see this done for all the dissertations and publications of every president of an R1 university—or maybe even more broadly than that. I'm curious whether Gay's plagiarism really is an outlier.
From the examples I've seen, Gay's use of phrases found in other works is so limited and generic, it really doesn't rise to the level of plagiarism. Maybe there are other examples that I haven't seen. But I have seen examples of Neil Gorsuch's alleged plagiarism, and they are much closer to the dictionary definition.
"This is supposed to be part of a broad attack on women and minorities in positions of power, and that might be true. But I'd sure like to see some evidence."
Exhibit A: Compare the examples of Gay's and Gorsuch's alleged plagiarism. The only reason I can see why the case of Gorsuch isn't as bad or worse than Gay's is because he did it while being a White male.
Exhibit B: Only three college presidents were called in for hearings on alleged campus antisemitism. All three were female and one out of three was Black, way out of proportion to the college president demographic.
I'd suggest reading this Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/Tyler_A_Harper/status/1742673023260360883
And as far as Gorsuch goes, I'd say that the explanation is the same as for why Clarence Thomas hasn't been taken down by his (seemingly much worse) corruption scandal, Republicans will defend him against any and all charges, regardless of their merit.
Many on the left will defend those on their side in much the same way, but not all. (In the long-run, I view this as a strength of the left, but maybe I'm wrong and the left is becoming more like the right in this regard).
Actually, the president of Columbia University was also invited. She declined to participate. From what I've read about her (Minouche Shafik), she is an impressive person.
Actually, the president of Columbia University was also invited. She declined to participate.
It's rather astonishing Penn, MIT and Harvard agreed to participate. Has no one at those newspapers read a newspaper over the last fifteen years, or looked at Twitter? It should have been obvious they were being set up. The Republican Party many years ago forgot the meaning of the phrase "good faith."
"From the examples I've seen, Gay's use of phrases found in other works is so limited and generic, it really doesn't rise to the level of plagiarism."
Oh it absolutely did.
Post examples. The ones I've seen didn't, and I've been a university professor for over 36 years.
I don't take homework assignments from you, prof.
LOL! Not homework. Just evidence. You failed.
Smarter trolls, please.
You don't thick the choices might have been something to do with the prominence of these universities and the well publicized anti-Semitic incidents that had happened just before the hearings?
What white male university presidents do you think should have been called in?
Presidents of Yale or Princeton, for example.
I think all the discussions about her "merit" to have gotten the job is what leads to the implication of racism. Did all those white conservatives evaluate other college presidents and find her particularly lacking or was the assumption that since she was a Black woman that she couldn't possibly be qualified? I know where I'd put my money.
A black person in a high position who is perceived as a “liberal” clearly got that position because of their race. A black person in a high position who is outspokenly “conservative” got their position through merit. Ask Clarence Thomas.
Here are Claudine Gay's publications and, for comparison, Sally Kornbluth's.
https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Claudine-Gay-2031603735
https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Sally-Kornbluth-39574592
There is no comparison
These lists are created automatically by researchgate (and say that at the top of tha pages). You cannot take tham as authoritative on anything.
I know Kornbluth's work well (same field). She's been incredibly productive, especially considering she spent many years as Provost at Duke. Ones scholarly productivity usually declines, sometimes sharply, when one has such a visible and high-responsibility role.
But I don't know Gay's field, so I don't know what level of scholarly productivity is typical for promotion to Professor. I do know that my h-factor when I went up for promotion to Associate Professor with tenure was higher than Gay's is right now, and, well, lets just say it didn't go well...
I do agree with Kevin that President's are rarely selected for their scholarly productivity.
And to be clear I am not defending Gay from plagiarism charges, just clarifying some less important aspects of the, um, discussion.
"But politicos on both the left and right do this all the time"
Any examples of prominent liberals admitting to a bad faith attack on someone and bragging about its success? I can't think of any. And it certainly doesn't happen "all the time."
In any case, I think the objection is to Harvard's folding in the face of the bad faith attack rather than resisting it. My own opinion is this is a Harvard problem, not a me problem. If they want to cave to bullshit attacks like this one that's fine. The rest of us have no stake in it.
Clawback - I think Trump is a vile person and former President.
Some (to be clear, not all) of the current charges against Trump, such as hush payment to the former porn star, are driven as a way to get Trump, and not out of a broader ethical goal to stop this activity more broadly.
THe case isn't primary about the fact that money was paid to a porn star. it is about thr misuse of campaign funds to do so & cover up that misuse.
Yes. Election integrity is something in which the nation has a compelling interest. And in which the defendant also claims a strong interest — heh.
I suppose that comes close, but the difference is that I, and I think most other liberals, would absolutely not want Trump prosecuted for his crimes unless the law was clearly broken and others in the same position would also be prosecuted for the same acts. I don't want standards for prosecution and conviction lowered to get Trump.
Whereas Rufo and his ilk don't care about any of that. They're happy to get at their enemies without regard for any norms or standards.
The City and State of New York prosecute business people for this particular crime quite often. Trump got a pass because nobody wanted to take him on until recently. Don't buy Republican propaganda—any other non billionaire would have been prosecuted much sooner and far more vigorously
One problem that I have is that conservatives like Rufo get to take scalps for basically nothing burger controversies that they themselves gin up but nobody ever thinks about taking their scalp. Rufo’s long overdue for a fall. We ought to get working on it right now.
And Stefanik.
"Rufo received a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service in 2006.[14][6][7] In 2022, he earned a Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies from Harvard University Extension School."
His entire scholastic output could consist of Wikipapers, and no one on the right would give a damn. He's a hitman and nothing more, this year's Donald Segretti. You know, a ratfucker.
There's a story that when the Harvard Corporation (= its Board of Trustees) appointed James B. Conant president, the eminent philosopher Alfred North Whitehead complained to one member of the committee that they had made a big mistake in making a chemist president. The member observed that the late Charles William Eliot had been a chemist, too, and up to that time the university's most transformative president. Whitehead is said to have replied, "Yes, but Eliot was a poor chemist..."
Just like diplomats are hired to lie for their countries, Uni and College presidents are hired to lie for their schools. A good liar is well worth the money. The previous guy, DJT, was great at the volume of lies but not an effective liar.
My advice to anyone taking the Harvard presidents job is to have a very big golden parachute.
harvard's new hire should staff a position to run plagiarism checks against people at the major business schools like wharton, u of chicago, northwestern, etc., as well as any federalist society members
Except that Harvard did run a plagiarism check on Gay's work when vetting her for the job and they found nothing to cavil about then. Digging deeper, it's more about caving to the demands of a certain billionaire donor ... whose wife committed actual plagiarism while at MIT.
What Gay did was plagiarism, pure and simple. I don't understand how you could say otherwise. English comp handbooks and probably many other resources in other fields describe plagiarism and how to avoid it, which is mostly the art of quoting and footnoting. Only a very sloppy scholar would do what Dr. Gay did. That the Harvard Board chose to go soft on her because they badly wanted a DEI president is their problem. There is no controversy about what plagiarism is.
It did not help her case that she could not bring herself to say in public testimony that calls for genocide of Jews would not be tolerated on campus. All campuses have speech codes, for good reasons.
Certainly race and gender has played a big role in all of this. See this commenter. Its one example of some random guy, but hes not alone.
The DEI buzzword is new, but it only replaces the other words that have fallen out of fashion for this argument.
That Harvard has committed fully to DEI programs and policies is a matter of public knowledge. Moreover, Dr. Gay implemented DEI standards when she headed Arts and Sciences. It’s not racist to point that out as a possible reason for her appointment as president. Not everyone thinks she did a good job. Harvard faculty are on record criticizing her actions, as is the ACLU.
Ah yes of course.
The same old argument and response with a new buzzword....
They lowered their standards because she is a DEI hire!
Dont blame me for having these thoughts and assuming that they lowered their standards! DEI!
I cant be racist because other people share my opinion! DEI!
lol, yes of course
Who are you again? Besides some random internet idiot who can't be arsed to read anything that's not part of their algorithmic media feed, that is.
"But politicos on both the left and right do this all the time"
That's one person's perspective. The other perspective is that everyone playing the zero sum game, right and left, is on the same side supporting President Donald in a way that is -- respectively -- intentional or unintentional. I'm on the other side intentionally supporting President Biden.
"I am sending you out as sheep among wolfs. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves." Matthew 10:16
Amen.
I THINK, one can not prove this, a straight white liberal man who had similar challenges to Gay (major donors publicly attacking and threatening to withhold major donations, a very poor showing in a Congressional hearing, similar plagiarism challenges, a short tenor in the position, etc) would likely also have lost the job.
Perhaps her race, or gender, was an accelerant, but at its core, Gay lacked supporters and had pissed off major donors...
I THINK, one can not prove this, a white man who had similar challenges to Gay (major donors publicly attacking and threatening to withhold major donations, a very poor showing in a Congressional hearing, similar plagiarism challenges, a short tenor in the position, etc) would not have lost his job.
University of South Carolina president- white guy- resigned in humilation after it was found out he plagiarized a freakin' commencement speech. Google it, it was just two years ago.
I have a professional doctorate from a dinky regional school and I can tell you that if I had copied sentences and paragraphs like she did, I'd have been thrown out on my tuchus. And I'm a white guy too.
Why don't random idiots like you read up on the facts, namely that Harvard did vet her for plagiarism and found her work acceptable? Oh, wait, it must've been because of DEI requirements amirite? Fuck off back to where you came from.
ScentOfViolets - I have a daughter who is a current Harvard undergrad. I am very familiar with this case.
As an aside, counter to your claim, I believe Gay's hiring was not because of a strict DEI requirement: rather, she was a well qualified candidate. With that said, many factors go into that type of hiring decision. Promoting the first black woman to President, possibly, was one of many factors but I have no inside information.
Don't tell me you're 'plenty smart', show me. You haven't done so to date. And what your 'daughter says' don't mean diddly; fact is she was already vetted for plagiarism by Harvard and found that her 'plagiarism' such as it was, didn't rise to the level of barring her to from her former role. We already know how you roll, but just for the record, why do you think that Harvard didn't find her 'plagiarism' a bar to her employment?
Did you google the case you are referencing?
You dont seem to be familiar with the subject at hand.
Magill is white. She was out much faster.
And your point is . . . ?
'I THINK, one can not prove this...' is a remarkably similar construct underlying trump's stolen election nonsense
some self-proclaimed 'middle of the roaders' apparently take comfort in that
lower-case
I will avoid your silly, and false, Trump election delaying BS comment.
Rather, to the topic at hand, Liz Magill (former Penn President) was forced to resign after the Congressional hearing. Magill, I believe, is a straight white female and did not have a flagiarism challenge.
I believe the items I mention above, but not Gay's race or gender, were central to her forced resignation.
>>>Trump election delaying
so trump's orchestrations were only intended to 'delay' the election?
interesting take for a mord
"I believe . . ."
You? Who are you?
Rep. Stefanik certainly knew that, once she set out to make heads roll, that the right-wing propagandists would say the quiet stuff out loud — diversity hire, reverse discrimination, etc. Stefanik didn’t have to be overt about it, but she’ll get the benefit for the racist overtones as well as the anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism.
If only we had an example of a white male getting a seat on the Supreme Court with far more severe examples of plagiarism as a counterfactual to your assertion.
Zing!
Or president if the United States...
From the NY Post (not the New York Times)
"Bill Ackman’s wife, former MIT professor Neri Oxman, admits to plagiarizing in doctoral dissertation"
Originally on Business Insider.
The link appears to be verboten.
Ah, ninja'd! I read the same piece.
Well, I'm having a hard time squaring her appointment with that of, say, Larry Summers. I realized that being a talented academic isn't the sole requirement, or even the primary requirement for the job, and that the ability to lead a large organization and manage a diverse set of folks is clearly also important. By the time of his appointment, Summers had demonstrated both whereas Gay had demonstrated neither.
And yet, Summers was forced out because his insensitivity to diversity.
His insensitivity to fundraising and facts, too, but...
For that matter, why do idiots like Tyler Cowen still have jobs? What they do is a far more egregious sin than the one Gay (supposedly) commited.
I haven't looked deeply, but this very much looks like a double standard kind of issue.
Which is to say, what Gay did is "wrong", and not supposed to be done in scholarly work, but it is not particularly bad, or instrumental to the work presented in the writings it is found in. It's a violation of form, not substance. But it is a form that is recognized and propagated, even within Harvard.
And so, with a white male, the explanation would be made, and he (Mr. Chris Gay) would keep his job.
It doesn't help that Ms. Gay did not exactly cover herself with glory in that congressional hearing. Yes, a trap was laid for you, but c'mon, your job is to be the public face of Harvard, you have to expect that crap and have a way to deal with it.
A trap was laid, but also, lied about.
There was five minutes of incoherent 'questions' from Stefanik. And then they lied about the context of the answer. She'd already answered it earlier in her testimony.
The double standard is that Harvard students have gotten suspended for less than what the President did in academic papers and her dissertation. The president of Stanford (white guy) was forced out when faked data was found in papers he was associated with and there was no evidence he even knew about it.
Is this a double standard? It doesnt appear to be given the vastly different nature of a students purpose at University compared with an employee/administrator.
A student likely wouldnt be punshed for cheating on their taxes, but a school admin might.
A sports league player might be punished for taking steroids, but a league official might not be.
These only appear to be double standards if you refuse to consider the different roles.
You know, back in the day, I'd often get homework back with notations saying 'how do you know this? Prove it! Not that my proofs were wrong, mind you, just innacurate.
And yet, when that same professor was going through a proof of, say, the Riemann–Roch theorem, they'd very often commit those very sins of omission they'd been gigging me for. Oh my stars and garters! What a double standard!
TL;DR: If you really think that what I outlined is a double standard, then there is something really wrong with you. At the minimum, you should never hold a position in academia.
> I'd sure like to see some evidence.
She's black, she's a woman, and she was in a position of power.
God is going to be next.
"God'll getcha for that, Walter."
Simple answer: No, her copied phrases are nearly entirely terms of art,
That's hard for outsiders to judge. Every discipline has "boilerplate" language, and it that is it, then it truly is a nothing burger. Picking out scattered sentences that are close to others work and yelling "plagiarism" in not just disingenuous, it is also wrong. The question then is if you analyzed the work that was "plagiarized", would that same sentence also be flagged? And who else could be tagged with "plagiarizing" it?
As for the Harvard students railing against a double standard, i.e.. they would be disciplined or expelled for doing the same thing, they're conflating this with copying from a Wikipedia article for a small report when the work really wasn't done. Of course in the realm of public opinion, if you're explaining, you're losing.
The real problem with Gay is that she really was hired to show everyone how Woke Harvard is to get donations. That's not saying she's unqualified but she wasn't a scholar type president (look at her publishing output). She was a "get donations" president. As said, this is a perfectly acceptable qualification for her job. But when the congressional testimony and plagiarism hurt her ability to get donations she lost her value.
Did her defenders try to defend her on the basis of scholarship?
Raising money is the primary job of university presidents/chancellors. The provost is typically the top academic officer, not the president/chancellor.
There are certainly academically outstanding university presidents/chancellor. Mark Wrighton at Washington University was an MIT chemistry wunderkind before becoming the head of WU, where he turned out to be an outstanding fundraiser as well.
The country had a tiny moment of accountability, but it faded fast, as it does every time—and it’s not just the DeSantises & Rufos who took a battering ram to decency (calling it “woke”). Claudine Gay being president of Harvard was meaningful in big and small ways. That hearing was pure setup and gross . . . and Stefanik, shameless hypocrite, still has her job.
I confess I have never given a shit about representation despite being latino.
On the last point, scientific journals already use software like https://www.ithenticate.com to look for plagiarism.
Now they do.
The plagiarism examples cited in https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/01/04/claudine-gay-plagiarism-examples-harvard/ are extremely weak, I think.
I agree, but then again my opinion isn't worth bupkis because I wasn't part of the hiring process that vetted Gay.
"I never hire a dean who doesn't know how to raise money." - Martin Jischke, former president of three different large research universities. I worked at Purdue when Jischke was there, and at one point the football team played in a major bowl game. Jischke took a team of VPs and deans to the game, with the goal of raising $10M from the various wealthy alumni who would be there. He was totally open about this.
The notion that a university president should have a strong academic background is quaint. They are primarily fundraisers. Was Ms. Gay any good at that?
She was fine at that. But now she's not.
Had Gay been the only university president at those hearings, Fox would have had a lead story for a day, a press release would have announced that Gay had ‘misspoken’, and most people on the Left would have never heard of the whole sorry affair. But three presidents were enough to cause a political earthquake. Despite protestations on the Left that there was nothing to see, the tremors immediately knocked one president off her perch, while the others wobbled. The Right sensed its moment and moved in for the kill with charges of plagiarism. Even just one generation ago, when shame was still a thing, either event would have sufficed for any university president to hanker after more time with the family. Stomachs are stronger today. Trump once mused that he could shoot a man in public and not lose support. I really couldn’t understand it then but I think I do now. Voltaire had it right: Enlightened times will only enlighten a small number of honest men; the common people will always be fanatical.
The number of university presidents had nothing to do with the outcome, which was predetermined. Stefanik set out to build her street cred with the large anti-elitist, anti-intellectual faction of her party by beating up some heads of prestigious institutions. Propagandists and pundits of the right-wing movement recognized the opportunity to boost their own standing by piling on. Egghead-punching.
I disagree. Anyone and everyone who gets in trouble uses the default excuse of having misspoke. And that would have been easy enough here: Oh THAT genocide! Well, you see, I was so preoccupied with how people can mistake certain slogans, and that combined with the bright lights just kept me from answering your question. Sorry.
In fact, had even the third president just given a decent answer (Genocide? Yeah, bad and not tolerated. Thanks for asking!) then I rather doubt we would still be talking about it.
As for the outcome being ‘predetermined’, that’s really far from the truth. Are you saying that were you to take the stand tomorrow that you’d basically give the same answers? I hope not. These sort of hearings happen often enough but rarely draw blood. Were they predetermined, you could be sure that they would be running constantly.
Not sure what you're going on about. Gay's response about context was probably more accurate that what the expedient response would have been. For purposes of PR optimization, she ought to have said something like "Congresswomen, I certainly expect a call for violence of any kind against our fellow human beings would violate the university's code blah blah blah."
Claudine Gay proved inept at public jousting with skillful, deceitful right wingers. Tis true. And now she's gone.
I don't think there's any great mystery about this. But the fact remains the kind of answer that would have helped her hold onto her job would have been less accurate than the one she gave, which is that the university she works for takes context into account when deciding free speech cases.
Taking context into account? Now I’m not sure what you are going on about. You do realize that genocide entails a systematic killing of an entire group, right? Please explain a context in which an individual belonging to a given group need not feel threatened by another person calling for the genocide of that group.
Why don't you look up the definition of genocide before flapping your gums, Tuds? And why is it perfectly fine when Israel says 'From the river to the sea', but a call for 'genocide' when somebody else uses exactly the same phrase?
Are you even aware that the only party engaging in genocide/ethnic cleansing is -- wait for it -- Israel? Good God, man, read a little before making comments that make you look ridiculous.
What a great idea! Hold on a second… Here it is: the systematic killing of a social group, especially a religious, ethnic or linguistic group.
Now your point being… Well, it’s a mystery, frankly. No worries, I’m here to help. Let’s rewind the clock in the hope that this will help to focus your mind. We are back at the Senate hearings. The question: Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your school’s code of conduct? Answer: It depends on the context.
Well, now that we have the dictionary definition of genocide, can you give me a context where an individual need not feel endangered were someone in close proximity to call for the killing of all people such as himself?
Let’s just say that everything you wrote was just obfuscation of the issue, and let you go again. I’m listening.
You said: "You do realize that genocide entails a systematic killing of an *entire* group, right?"
No, you don't have to murder an entire group of people to have committed genocide. I'd say game, set, match, but I'll also note that a) you say when one group uses a phrase it's a call for 'genocide', yet give a pass for another group who uses the exact same phrase, and b) the group you're giving a pass for using that phrase is actually the group who's doing the genocide. Unless you're willing to 'fess up that you were wrong on one point and refused to address the other, we're done. I'm tired of wasting my time with dimwitted hateful fools who refuse to argue in good faith.
Yeah, game, set match! Let me get this straight: You are trying to hide behind the word ‘entire’, right? And then, and I’m guessing here, that you will use that to argue that a call for genocide need not alarm anyone because every individual should just assume that he’s excluded, along with everyone else he might care about. To make it more trendy, you expect that you could walk on a campus, issue a call for the genocide of the transgender, but not directed at any particular individual, and then wonder why anyone on campus might fear for his life. Because ‘context’, right, and ‘entire’?
More than a failure of comprehension, this is a moral failing. But, yeah, in your head it is just so much winning.
For kicks, here’s the second definition in my dictionary: a systematic effort to destroy a social group. If you are into etymology (ha!) then you’d see that it means the killing of a race. For your edification, you can compare it to a ‘pogrom’.
If you would like to work on your reading comprehension, we could examine your points ‘a’ and ‘b’, because they are nowhere to be found in what I’ve written. My point, to reiterate, is that calls for genocide have no place on campus as people on the receiving end have every reason to take it as a threat. No group gets a pass.
I guess there’s a spelling mistake somewhere you can hide behind.
It is hard not to pile on, but here’s the first line from Wikipedia on genocide: Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part.
I’m sure you are arguing in good faith, but I suspect your problems lie deeper.
When the group calling for genocide is so weak as to be no more likely obtain it than a dog howling impotently at the moon.
Well, that’s a good argument, but I think I’ll take a swing at it.
I’d be willing to accept this argument provided the the individual calling for the killing be so weak as to not be able to injure a single person, either through direct violence or through the reasonable expectation of force of words to influence others.
If I were to walk into a store and you were to walk in after me, lock the door, pull out a gun, and announce that you wanted people to rise up and carry out the genocide of all my people, what should I do? I guess I could follow your logic and say that you are just a joke and that your dreams are far beyond your ability to execute them. But you know what? I’d be uncomfortable. Does that make sense to you? Does that seem like the sort of speech that a university should prohibit? Does it seem reasonable that an individual might find that harassement or even a threat?
You know that old saw that when someone tells you who he is, believe him? Well, when someone tell me that he wants all people such as myself dead, well I believe him. And killing an individual is all too easy today.
Maybe we can make this a bit easier and more concrete: Give me a case where a student could call for the killing of all trans such that a trans person on campus need not feel threatened.
Props to Kevn for at least trying to offer a fair and balanced perspective on the Gay affair. But he seems to fall into the euphemism trap with this phrase: “sentence-level copying.” Sentence level copying is plagiarism. Gay clearly and seriously plagiarized. And if the left loses the ability to just call a spade a spade, it discredits itself.
Here is one of many takes on the situation from the distinctly liberal Washington Monthly:
“Though the undeniable plagiarism, as defined by Harvard itself, had come to Harvard’s attention before December, what led to the demise of the first Black president of Harvard was that she had become an embarrassment among people whom the Harvard Corporation respects … Even Bill Ackman, the billionaire Harvard alum who put financial pressure on Harvard for months, is a longtime Democratic donor.
“The overwhelmingly liberal bunch who pushed Gay out were swayed by the truth of what Rufo and other conservatives unearthed … Conservatives did not take Gay down. Liberals did, persuaded by what the conservatives had said. … Rufo (and Brunet and Sibarium and anonymous people) had exposed plagiarism, which was coupled with a genuinely embarrassing testimony that revealed either indifference, incompetence, or hypocrisy …
“If Rufo had leaked that a bunch of liberals in the Biden campaign had gotten together to discuss raising the top income tax rate, there would be no story. Rufo would not be a national figure … and you (or I) wouldn’t know who he is. But in fact, liberals at mainstream institutions do outrageous things sometimes, like plagiarize or force a federal nuclear scientist to miss his kid’s birthday for a 4-day-long segregated diversity training, and Rufo is good at finding those things.”
This last paragraph gets into the topic of how very far from the mainstream the Radical Left is these days. And the ultimate problem with people like Rufo is us. He keeps finding legitimate targets because the modern Left makes it easy for him to do so. And acknowledging as much would be good for us. We have an election to win, and our job is more difficult if and when we cannot or will not acknowledge and fix our own mistakes.
Plagiarism was the pretext for her dismissal, one that liberal intellectuals have a hard time dismissing.
The obvious real reason was unwillingness to condemn anti-Israel rhetoric in the student body and faculty. This angered many large donors and influential alumni.
60 years? No, before that. HUAC was active before then. https://daily.jstor.org/how-one-group-of-teachers-defended-academic-freedom/
NYState had a investigation of "sedition" in WWI.
How about this, Kevin: if you've been subjected to one disingenuous and hypocritical attack from the right, you're exempt from everyone else piling on you after the *next* disingenuous and hypocritical attack from the right for at least a month.
If, after one month, people are still worried about your plagiarism non-scandal, then have at it.
Gay was targeted first because billionaire Bill Ackman thought she hadn't cracked down on pro-Palestinian protests as hard as he wanted. (Ackman's wife was just found to have committed "plagiarism" similar to Gay's, by the way.)
It's a pretty egregious attack on academic freedom.
Reason #1374 why billionaires should be taxed out of existence.
It's academic freedom to allow some students to chant eliminationist slogans at other students? I didn't know that.
When the whole story comes out the public will learn what many at Harvard already know, that Gay attacked faculty for specious reasons. The law professor who defended Harvey Weinstein in court lost his job because Weinstein is a monster, etc. Lawyers often defend people they don't admire. It's part of their job.
See the ACLU website:
"Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana announced that Ronald Sullivan, a professor in the law school, would no longer serve as faculty dean of Winthrop House, a residential dorm at Harvard. Sullivan was the first African American to serve as a faculty dean and had served in that role at Winthrop House for a decade. But when he chose to join the legal team defending Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in his upcoming criminal trial on allegations of sexual assault, his decision sparked protests and sit-ins, as students demanded his ouster as dean. In the end, Harvard caved to the pressure."
Also, check out Andrew Sullivan's interview this week with Carole Hooven, who was victimized by the DEI types at Harvard. Not a pretty picture.
Prof. Sullivan did not ‘lose his job’, he remains a professor at Harvard Law School. I too think it was an injustice to remove him as faculty Dean of an undergraduate house, but it was not his principal position at the university. And the removal came years before Claudine Gay took office.
That is a curious phrasing; it implies that there should be a set of ideas/opinions that students are ‘allowed’ to express. I rather think that, at institutions of learning where students will go on to live in this free society, restrictions on speech exceeding those recognized in law should be carefully considered and minimal.
+1
_You_ don't get to decide what 'elimationist rhetoric' is, Tuds. Nor what are acceptable guardrails when it comes to free speech on a university campus.
How's that Israeli lebensraum/ethnic cleansing/genocide turning your crank, BTW? You know, the real thing?
Correction: College presidents' ONLY job is money. Running the place is what the Provost does. Well, him and VP Finance.
I'd say there are two issues that can't be overlooked. First, while the listed instances of plagiarism were all somewhat innocuous, the fact that she didn't put the effort in ahead of time to check her work puts her in a bad position to judge the work of her students. Second, while her limited body of published work may not have been a major hindrance in her role as university president, it really should have prevented her from receiving tenure in the first place. I imagine there were far more qualified candidates the university could've chosen.
Tell me you're a racist without telling me you're a racist. Also tell me you don't read the comments first before replying without telling me you don't read the comments first before replying.