It was a while coming, but disgraced Harvard President Claudine Gay finally resigned under immense pressure after claims of antisemitism and allegations of plagiarism. The 53-year-old former president had been under fire along with the president of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania after disastrously refusing to condemn on-campus, anti-Israeli rhetoric, instead claiming that ‘more context’ was needed.
The UPenn president stepped down under pressure, and Gay has as well. Gay, who is black, was also accused of numerous instances of plagiarism involving her 1997 Ph.D. dissertation and several other minor instances of uncited references on certain papers and of being given preferential treatment because of her race.
House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said this: “Our concern is that standards are not being applied consistently, resulting in different rules for different members of the academic community. If a university is willing to look the other way and not hold faculty accountable for engaging in academically dishonest behavior, it cheapens its mission and the value of its education. Students must be evaluated fairly, under known standards — and have a right to see that faculty are, too.”
With the announcement of Gay’s decision, an activist group called Accuracy in Media, which was instrumental in applying the necessary pressure on Harvard and Gay to do the right thing, celebrated by savagely trolling the disgraced former president in front of her university residence Wednesday.
The group rented a digital billboard and two U-Haul trucks and scrolled the message: “It’s moving day Claudine Gay! Sponsored by the TENS OF THOUSANDS of Accuracy in Media activists who demanded your RESIGNATION.” The group had been displaying messages for days outside of Gay’s residence prior to her Tuesday resignation. The aim of the group is to use “citizen activism and investigative journalism to expose media bias, corruption, and public policy failings,” all of which are in great abundance under Joe Biden.
Per the Harvard school newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, Gay’s resignation marked the shortest and clearly most embarrassing tenure for a president in the university’s history. Unfortunately, rather than accept her responsibility for the embarrassing mess, Gay leaned on the familiar crutch of racism during her statement of resignation. She said: “Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to uphold scholarly rigor-two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am-and frightening to be subjected to personnel attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.”
It is unclear if Gay has yet vacated her campus home, but it is reported that she will continue to make her president’s salary and will return to a faculty position. So, while it is a small victory for truth and integrity, in the end, Gay loses little more than some pride and a title for her plagiarism and refusal to denounce campus hatred towards Jews. It is a disappointing outcome and a show of weakness from the university, but groups like Accuracy in Media are going to keep their collective eyes and ears open and continue to apply pressure where pressure is needed in cases like the Harvard president.
Watch a video of the truck here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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