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The writing has been on the wall for at least a week, and yesterday, Harvard president Claudine Gay bowed to reality and resigned her position. She served just 6 months, the shortest tenure in the almost-400-year history of the institution.
There's really no question Gay had to go. Her clumsy answers about antisemitism were problematic, but survivable, since there was no ill intent. However, the numerous revelations about her history of plagiarism? How can a professor at Harvard lecture their students about the evils of plagiarism, how can they hold plagiarists accountable, if the president of the university does not play by the same rules? Once the extent of Gay's misdeeds was clear, she had to go.
Truth be told, she really shouldn't have been hired in the first place. To start, the tools that were used to identify her plagiarism in the last two weeks were available 6 months ago. For the hiring committee not to vet the document borders on malpractice. Further, Gay's publication record was shockingly scant for any Harvard faculty member, much less the president of the institution. She has just 17 items on her CV, of which a dozen are the sort that would be considered meaningful by a hiring committee. None of them are books; in general, in the social sciences, completion of the first book is a requisite for tenure. Just for comparison, the chair of Gay's former department, who was also her underling for 6 months, is David Carpenter. He has 194 publications, including four books.
In short, as academics, we see nothing wrong with Gay being shown the door. That said, it is also the case that she was the victim of a witch hunt. It was instigated, most significantly, by Wall Street billionaire financier Bill Ackman. He is generally angry about antisemitism on the nation's campuses; he's also angry about how Harvard used some of the money he donated, and he's not happy about how MIT treated his wife, Neri Oxman, who used to be a professor there. So, he decided to use his money and his influence to strike back.
Ackman found a willing toady, of course, in Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). She's thrilled to have any opportunity to "own the libs." She also likes it when people make big-time donations to her super PAC, which Ackman can do without batting an eyelash. So, the Representative set up a trap that quickly brought down Penn president Liz Magill. When the lousy antisemitism answers were not enough to vanquish Gay, Stefanik turned her focus to the plagiarism. MIT's Sally Kornbluth better hope there are no skeletons to be discovered in her closet. She's got a long and distinguished record of scholarship, so she's not likely someone to get popped for plagiarism. But maybe she once went to a communist meeting or something.
There are, as we see it, two takeaways here. The first is that people who dislike institutions of higher education—most of them right-wingers—now have clear targets. It's pretty hard to take on mighty Harvard or mighty Yale, but if the leader of the school has liabilities, they can be brought down, following a public flogging. The leaders of the nation's other top schools better hope they don't have any dirty secrets waiting to be uncovered.
The second takeaway is that Stefanik is really showing her true colors. More and more, she reminds us of a hybrid between Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Ron DeSantis. She's a chameleon like Graham, willing to embrace whatever opinion or political position seems expedient at the time. But she's cruel like DeSantis, willing to do harm to people or institutions as it suits her needs. No wonder she's a rising star in MAGA world, we suppose. (Z)