Claudine Gay departure in perspective

Yesterday, as CNAV reported, Claudine Gay, the 33^rd President of Harvard University, resigned. Today her resignation has provoked both cheers and jeers. The cheers one can understand, but the jeers reveal much about the character of those doing the jeering. Apparently being a member of a critical-theoretically favored group is more important than either academic integrity or consistent and non-selective application of university community discipline. Considering the poor work output in support of “diversity, equity and inclusion,” this should surprise no one. It stands as yet another reason to reevaluate either going to college, or to which colleges one might apply.

Why did Claudine Gay resign?

Claudine Gay became a target after she made a God-awful appearance before the House Education and Workforce Committee. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), incidentally the Chair of the House Republican Conference, asked a simple question of three university presidents:

Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?

Recall Claudine Gay’s answer:

It can be [violative], depending on the context.

An answer she repeated, finally prompting an exasperated Rep. Stefanik to call on her to resign. Which, again, she did. But that is not why she resigned. The Harvard Corporation stood by her, despite her appearance before the Ed. Committee and despite other allegations against her. Bill Ackman of Pershing Square, who has started a Donors’ Revolution, knew it.

But those other allegations ultimately brought her down. They were of plagiarism, the worst sin an academic or writer can commit – the theft of another person’s work. According to The Washington Free Beacon, over half her published work carries this taint. Even her doctoral dissertation carries the taint – though whether it started with her dissertation is an open question. (Probably it doesn’t. Plagiarism is a bad habit one usually acquires when one first receives composition assignments in middle or even elementary school.) Though no one at the Harvard Corporation wants to admit it, the embarrassment finally became too great.

In her letter of resignation, she played the race card. Laura Loomer, who embedded it in photographs, was not impressed.

Disclaimer

CNAV has decided not to refer to or address Claudine Gay with the title of Doctor. In the late Seventies, a professor of economics at Yale University told your editor that Ivy League professors did not usually address one another as “Doctor.” “A kind of self-imposed snobbery,” he called it. But he went on to explain that, in the Ivy League, everyone was a “Doctor” of something – generally Philosophy. To avoid confusion, they reserved the title Doctor for Doctors of Medicine (or Osteopathy or Dental Surgery). Such at least was the custom then, and it seemed a good custom.

But that’s not why Claudine Gay doesn’t rate that title. Quite simply, she stands accused of at least fifty instances of plagiarism during her career – beginning with her doctoral dissertation. And because she wrote and defended that dissertation at Harvard, her violation of academic integrity is doubly serious. Not only did she regularly violate academic standards that Harvard itself upholds, but she violated them while they applied to her as a student at that very institution.

For the reasons enumerated above, CNAV refuses to dignify Claudine Gay with any academic title and recommends that Harvard revoke her Ph.D. diploma and terminate her employment. Sadly, the Harvard Corporation won’t do that. Instead they will retain her as a member of the faculty – with an annual salary of $900,000, no less. (And she is definitely not “worth her salt.”)

Reaction

Several conservative influencers, among them Dr. Steve Turley, gave their cheers in video:

But the jeers have also begun. The Gateway Pundit reported many of the jeers on the night after the resignation. Mike LaChance reported that Ibram X. Kendi gave everyone an eyeful. LaChance collected these X posts from Kendi and other “woke activists”:

Observe that Ibram Kendi’s post drew a Community Note reminding readers of the plagiarism charge. Among the works cited: Race Redistricting and Representation: the Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts, by David Cannon. (1999.)

LaChance also reported that a CNN reporter tried to excuse what Gay did as mere sloppiness. But according to Harvard’s own rules, even a sloppy scholar is just as guilty as a willful intellectual thief. As several outraged observers promptly reminded their followers on X:

This morning, Kristinn Taylor reported that The Rev. Al Sharpton will lead a protest at Bill Ackman’s New York offices.

She also collected a few more whining posts on X:

But Dr. Carol M. Swain, the first identified “victim” of Claudine Gay’s plagiarism, also weighed in on the controversy:

Claudine Gay and selective community discipline

But Claudine Gay did earn the wrath of concerned people everywhere with her initial reaction to the Fourth Arab-Israeli War. Bill Ackman definitely weighed in. He hasn’t forgotten the Harvard Corporation’s initial decision to stand by Gay. Nor has he forgotten those student groups who blamed Israel for everything. Now he wants all the Fellows of the Corporation to resign, including its chair, Penny Pritzker.

Margaret Flavin has the details. Ackman began with a condemnation of Gay for her initial statement – but went on to condemn the very concept of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

In that post Ackman linked to the site Penn Forward, which proposes a new constitution for the University of Pennsylvania. That constitution sets forth six guiding principles:

1. Intellectual diversity, not merely diversity of ethnic or political heritage,
2. Civil discourse and an expectation of civility,
3. Political neutrality from the administration,
4. Institutional neutrality (meaning, no favoritism among schools of thought),
5. Scientific neutrality, and
6. Mutual respect for and tolerance of community members from all origins.

Ackman urges all universities to embrace these principles, plus an admissions policy that emphasizes fair treatment of applicants as individuals.

Incidentally, Bill Ackman announced his intention to target Sally Kornbluth, president of MIT, next. Though a Jew herself, she has been grossly negligent in policing antisemitism on her own campus. As was Liz Magill at UPenn, until she finally had to resign.

Jeers on the conservative side?

Regrettably, at least one conservative commentator (or pretender) actually defended Claudine Gay. Nicholas J. Fuentes has gained a reputation for denying that Adolf Hitler’s war machine murdered six million Jews. When Claudine Gay resigned, he left his incredible defense, in three Telegram posts. (One, two, three.)

The Israel Lobby has finally succeeded in ousting Harvard President Claudine Gay after she was accused of insufficiently condemning Hamas in the wake of the al-Aqsa Flood attack. For 3 months Harvard has been subjected to a donor revolt and series of digital billboard guerrilla protests, both sponsored by Jewish billionaire Bill Ackman. Gay was also hauled before a congressional hearing and interrogated, alongside presidents of UPenn and MIT.

It just so happens that Gay was one of only three non-Jewish presidents of the eight Ivy League universities. She has been replaced by a left-wing Jew named Alan Garber, who criticized her response to the October 7th attack. He also supports DEI and was a signatory on Harvard’s letter protesting the SCOTUS decision on affirmative action earlier this year.

This development underscores the power that organized Jewry wields in the United States. Two Ivy League presidents have been sacked in under three months, and not for any ambiguous reason: because their support for Israel was not absolute and unconditional. To that end, Organized Jewry orchestrated a sustained, multi-faceted, high pressure campaign from their perch on Wall Street, Congress, conservative advocacy, and the media to overthrow the top provosts of two of the most prestigious and rich universities in the world. At UPenn’s Chair and Harvard’s President have both been replaced by liberal, DEI, Zionist Jews.

Much has been said in the last three months about how Whites may benefit from the rightward shift of World Jewry or from the infiltration of nationalistic Zionist Jews in the wake of the October 7th attack. People said that we could instrumentalize Zionist power to attack the left wing universities or deport Muslim refugees or use BLM’s affinity for Hamas to crack down on them. But despite all the talk about mass deportations or the common struggle of Whites and Jews as “oppressors”— Whites have accrued no benefit from this supposed awakening. Rather, predictably, Jews have been the exclusive beneficiaries of this crisis, and have used it to demand unconditional US support for Israel, sack “antisemitic” provosts and replace them with Zionists, and censor pro-Palestinian content and rallies. As long as Zionists are in the drivers seat, any arrangement with them will not have a mutual benefit.

Five points should suffice to refute this statement. First, Claudine Gay not only let those thirty-odd student organizations blame Israel for everything. She inspired them to do this by her own statements. In so doing she actually justified atrocious acts. A combatant that launches an atrocious sneak attack deserves no quarter, and nothing but annihilation will serve. This is not a penalty, but a recognition that the combatant is at war with all the rest of humanity. But Claudine Gay didn’t recognize that – because the Jews were her enemy.

Second, if Claudine Gay was one of three Gentile Ivy League university presidents, the remaining Gentile President was a better community disciplinarian than she. Business Insider carried this synoptic treatment of the reactions of all eight Ivy League Presidents to antisemitism on their campuses. The article fails to mention that Gay and Magill let antisemitism get totally out-of-hand on their campuses. None of the other Ivy League presidents committed any such negligence. So even that “other Gentile,” whichever it is, either jumped on the problem – or never let it develop. Those other Presidents distinguished themselves from Gay and Magill, not by words alone – but by deeds.

Other points

Third, Sally Kornbluth is Jewish herself – but she let antisemitism reach the point of creating no-go zones for Jews. That’s why Bill Ackman has made her his next target.

Fourth, Claudine Gay was no more friendly to the principles of respect for the individual than her interim successor, Provost Alan Garber, is likely to be. Garber was probably obeying her orders when he signed on to the statement protesting the Supreme Court’s anti-DEI decision. SFFA v. Harvard/UNC.

Fifth, Fuentes compounds his logical errors with actual defenses of and excuses for the Islamic Resistance Movement (Arabic Harakah al-Muqāwamah al-Islāmiyyah, abbreviated HAMAS). That HAMAS gets a free ride from the political left is bad enough. Anyone on the right who does the same, stains the honor of the political right.

However, the distinction of the other Ivy League schools is a small one at best. If any of those schools were to adopt the Penn Forward Constitution, that school might return to the reputation these schools once held. Unfortunately, Marxist infiltration of those schools might be too deep for that, so concerned parents should probably shop elsewhere.

In short, “Zionist infiltration” isn’t the problem at Harvard or anywhere else. Cultural Marxism is, together with a lack of academic integrity. For those things – plus inconsistent application of community discipline – these universities must apologize.