Harvard Claudine Gay resigns after plagiarism/antisemitism allegations

[marylander1940]

OP note: how come it took this long for her plagiarism to be noticed? 

 

Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigns amid plagiarism claims

WWW.CNBC.COM

---

Harvard President Claudine Gay has been under fire for weeks over claims of plagiarism and for her handling of the controversy over the war on Gaza by Israel.

Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president. This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have looked forward to working with so many of you to advance the commitment to academic excellence that has propelled this great university across centuries. 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.

It is a singular honor to be a member of this university, which has been my home and my inspiration for most of my professional career. My deep sense of connection to Harvard and its people has made it all the more painful to witness the tensions and divisions that have riven our community in recent months, weakening the bonds of trust and reciprocity that should be our sources of strength and support in times of crisis. Amidst all of this, it 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.

I believe in the people of Harvard because I see in you the possibility and the promise of a better future. These last weeks have helped make clear the work we need to do to build that future—to combat bias and hate in all its forms, to create a learning environment in which we respect each other’s dignity and treat one another with compassion, and to affirm our enduring commitment to open inquiry and free expression in the pursuit of truth. I believe we have within us all that we need to heal from this period of tension and division and to emerge stronger. I had hoped with all my heart to lead us on that journey, in partnership with all of you. As I now return to the faculty, and to the scholarship and teaching that are the lifeblood of what we do, I pledge to continue working alongside you to build the community we all deserve.

When I became president, I considered myself particularly blessed by the opportunity to serve people from around the world who saw in my presidency a vision of Harvard that affirmed their sense of belonging—their sense that Harvard welcomes people of talent and promise, from every background imaginable, to learn from and grow with one another. To all of you, please know that those doors remain open, and Harvard will be stronger and better because they do.

As we welcome a new year and a new semester, I hope we can all look forward to brighter days. Sad as I am to be sending this message, my hopes for Harvard remain undimmed. When my brief presidency is remembered, I hope it will be seen as a moment of reawakening to the importance of striving to find our common humanity—and of not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education. I trust we will all find ways, in this time of intense challenge and controversy, to recommit ourselves to the excellence, the openness, and the independence that are crucial to what our university stands for—and to our capacity to serve the world.

Sincerely,
Claudine Gay

Edited January 2 by marylander1940

[pubic_assistance]

There is no intellectual dialogue in the Ivy League anymore. It's all symbolism and emotional hijacking of young peoples minds.
They tell you WHAT to think, not HOW to think.

Clearly this woman's academic achievements were an afterthought because it didn't matter.

[BSR]

I kept reading that Gay would eventually have to resign, but I had my doubts because some very powerful forces were supporting her (Barack Obama at the top of the list).

She hired legal counsel almost from the get-go.  Now let's see how she responds to all this.

[marylander1940]

1 hour ago, BSR said:

I kept reading that Gay would eventually have to resign, but I had my doubts because some very powerful forces were supporting her (Barack Obama at the top of the list).

She hired legal counsel almost from the get-go.  Now let's see how she responds to all this.

As the saying goes:

"May you live in interesting times.

May you call the attention of those in positions of power".

She wasn't ready for the spotlight, possibly she didn't deserve her position or simply got lucky to reach so high in life.

Edited January 2 by marylander1940

[+ BOZO T CLOWN]

1 hour ago, marylander1940 said:

OP note: how come it took this long for her plagiarism to be noticed? 

 

Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigns amid plagiarism claims

WWW.CNBC.COM

---

Harvard President Claudine Gay has been under fire for weeks over claims of plagiarism and for her handling of the controversy over the war on Gaza by Israel.

Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president. This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have looked forward to working with so many of you to advance the commitment to academic excellence that has propelled this great university across centuries. 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.

It is a singular honor to be a member of this university, which has been my home and my inspiration for most of my professional career. My deep sense of connection to Harvard and its people has made it all the more painful to witness the tensions and divisions that have riven our community in recent months, weakening the bonds of trust and reciprocity that should be our sources of strength and support in times of crisis. Amidst all of this, it 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.

I believe in the people of Harvard because I see in you the possibility and the promise of a better future. These last weeks have helped make clear the work we need to do to build that future—to combat bias and hate in all its forms, to create a learning environment in which we respect each other’s dignity and treat one another with compassion, and to affirm our enduring commitment to open inquiry and free expression in the pursuit of truth. I believe we have within us all that we need to heal from this period of tension and division and to emerge stronger. I had hoped with all my heart to lead us on that journey, in partnership with all of you. As I now return to the faculty, and to the scholarship and teaching that are the lifeblood of what we do, I pledge to continue working alongside you to build the community we all deserve.

When I became president, I considered myself particularly blessed by the opportunity to serve people from around the world who saw in my presidency a vision of Harvard that affirmed their sense of belonging—their sense that Harvard welcomes people of talent and promise, from every background imaginable, to learn from and grow with one another. To all of you, please know that those doors remain open, and Harvard will be stronger and better because they do.

As we welcome a new year and a new semester, I hope we can all look forward to brighter days. Sad as I am to be sending this message, my hopes for Harvard remain undimmed. When my brief presidency is remembered, I hope it will be seen as a moment of reawakening to the importance of striving to find our common humanity—and of not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education. I trust we will all find ways, in this time of intense challenge and controversy, to recommit ourselves to the excellence, the openness, and the independence that are crucial to what our university stands for—and to our capacity to serve the world.

Sincerely,
Claudine Gay

"...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."

Hey Claudine, do you think the Jewish students at Harvard, who had to hide their identity and be subjected to ugly, unprecedented hatred and anti-Semitism would agree with your  "commitment to confronting hate"? Do you think all of the super rich Harvard alumni that withdrew their donations and endowments, costing Harvard billions of dollars, would also agree?

"...and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus."

Bozo hates to spoil the end of this movie...
but I guess she knows how it feels now.
Harvard and Claudine Gay both reap what they sow.

Hey Claudine, do you really believe that the attacks against you were because of "racial animus"?  And has nothing to do with the dozens of verified instances of plagiarism and your utter failure to protect the Jewish Harvard students from attacks? If so, you are a delusional fool that has no business being anywhere near an elite Ivy League campus. Yet, incredibly, she is being allowed to stay on the Harvard faculty staff. Why not? Gay has all of the qualifications to be a Harvard professor. She is a cheater, liar, bigot, and Jew-hater. A shining example of Harvard in the 21st century. She must have gotten a hell of a compensation package to step down. But she stupidly spilled the beans that she was still going to teach at the Harvard s__t hole.

BTC

 

 

[+ BOZO T CLOWN]

Rep Elise Stefanik: "At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules against bullying and harassment"?

Claudine Gay: "It depends on the context"

The incredible ignorance and arrogance of Claudine Gay are mind-boggling.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.

BTC

Edited January 2 by BOZO T CLOWN

[BSR]

27 minutes ago, BOZO T CLOWN said:

"...and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus."

Uh oh, lawsuit coming in 5 ... 4 ...

I'm guessing Harvard gave Claudine Gay one helluva golden parachute, on the condition that she not sue the university.  The big question is whether she can win more in a lawsuit.  Even if she ends up with less by suing, she'll reap more-precious-than-gold victim chic:  crying on Oprah, crying on The View, every Hollywood celebrity blowing sunshine up her ass.  Maybe she'll get her own Lifetime movie.

[+ WilliamM]

37 minutes ago, BOZO T CLOWN said:

"...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."

Hey Claudine, do you think the Jewish students at Harvard, who had to hide their identity and be subjected to ugly, unprecedented hatred and anti-Semitism would agree with your  "commitment to confronting hate"? Do you think all of the super rich Harvard alumni that withdrew their donations and endowments, costing Harvard billions of dollars, would also agree?

"...and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus."

Bozo hates to spoil the end of this movie...
but I guess she knows how it feels now.
Harvard and Claudine Gay both reap what they sow.

Hey Claudine, do you really believe that the attacks against you were because of "racial animus"?  And has nothing to do with the dozens of verified instances of plagiarism and your utter failure to protect the Jewish Harvard students from attacks? If so, you are a delusional fool that has no business being anywhere near an elite Ivy League campus. Yet, incredibly, she is being allowed to stay on the Harvard faculty staff. Why not? Gay has all of the qualifications to be a Harvard professor. She is a cheater, liar, bigot, and Jew-hater. A shining example of Harvard in the 21st century. She must have gotten a hell of a compensation package to step down. But she stupidly spilled the beans that she was still going to teach at the Harvard s__t hole.

BTC

 

 

 

She has tenure to stay as a professor at Harvard 

[+ BOZO T CLOWN]

8 minutes ago, WilliamM said:

She has tenure to stay as a professor at Harvard 

... and maybe she'll lose her tenure when they discover that she plagiarized her resignation letter!

BTC

[+ WilliamM]

8 minutes ago, BOZO T CLOWN said:

... and maybe she'll lose her tenure when they discover that she plagiarized her resignation letter!

BTC

Good luck on that

 

A Penn professional in the law school  has gotten away with  worse comments because she had tenure.

 

 She said her white law school students are smarter than her black law school students 

Edited January 2 by WilliamM

[soloyo215]

Terrible news. Harvard University of all places. At a time when higher education is being attacked for mediocrity, high cost and lack of affirmative action.

Sad all over.

[+ glutes]

Denouncing actual calls for genocide weren't enough. It took plagiarism to undo her. Wow. 

[+ WilliamM]

2 hours ago, soloyo215 said:

Terrible news. Harvard University of all places. At a time when higher education is being attacked for mediocrity, high cost and lack of affirmative action.

Sad all over.

According to The New York Times, . she is still on facility of.Harvard.

She has tenure  

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

It's possible she may have been caught a bit earlier if Doug69 was on the case.

I've heard he's quite good at spotting this kind of thing.

[CuriousByNature]

I imagine she, like many people of colour, has likely encountered 'racial animus' throughout her life.  It is incredibly sad and totally unjustifiable that anyone should be racially discriminated against.  But to spin her resignation to make it seem as if she's stepping down due to the racism she is encountering, is rubbing salt in the wounds of those who were harmed by her earlier words.  That said, we don't know what kind of racist vitriol she may be encountering since everything blew up after her antisemitic comments.  But I am surprised that someone who has likely faced many instances of discrimination in her own life, is willing to double-down and change the narrative so that she is the one being victimized.  Genocide can never be justified, no matter what the context.  Slavery can never be justified, no matter what the context.  The destruction of Indigenous cultures can never be justified, no matter what the context.  And rather than acknowledging the real reason why she is unsuitable for leading a university, she seeks sympathy for herself.  To me, this is more than delusional - it sounds completely narcissistic and perhaps even sociopathic.  Very sad, and very disappointing.

[soloyo215]

I find interesting how last night, MSNBC gave quite a spin to the story to make it look like a plot from some people. In the All-In with Christ Hayes show, hosted by a different person covering for Mr. Hayes, it claimed that the “bad faith” campaign against Ms. Gay and other university leaders, was spearheaded by congressional Republicans like Elise Stefanik and right wing activist Christopher Rufo, declaring that “Republicans want America’s elite institutions to remain run by conservatives and conservatives that they like. Period. And they’ll come up with any phony controversy to achieve that end.”

This is why I hate current media. At the end of the day, even if she was being under scrutiny by conservative nuts, the reason for her leaving is legitimate. Don't try to make her look like some kind of victim. She isn't. Of course she face the "nothing-new about it" pressures for being a member of a racial minority while holding a high position at an IV league university, but the fact remains that she did plagiarize work and presented it as her own.

Edited January 3 by soloyo215

[marylander1940]

"We just found out the former president of Harvard never had an original thought in her life."

Matt Walsh

[wsc]

On 1/2/2024 at 5:27 PM, marylander1940 said:

As the saying goes:

"May you live in interesting times.

May you call the attention of those in positions of power".

She wasn't ready for the spotlight, possibly she didn't deserve her position or simply got lucky to reach so high in life.

A predecessor notion to this is The Peter Principle, expressed in book of the same name by Lawrence J. Peter, published in 1969. The basic premise is that in a hierarchical system, an employee's successful performance in one job qualifies him to rise to the next level, then to the next, and the next, and so on, until he finds himself in a position which he is neither suited for nor capable in, thus disqualifying him from further advancement. Or as stated more concisely, "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."* (I found Peter's description of a "free floating apex" especially funny, having witnessed its demonstration several times in my career. It was used to describe a high-level executive whose entire organization was moved from beneath him, in stages, until he was left alone atop a no longer existing pyramid.)

*Acknowledged as quoted from the book, so as to avoid the kind plagiarism charge that got us here to begin with.

[+ augustus]

Look, if she would have just tried to run the school in a neutral way that took the needs of the students first, she'd still be there.  Unfortunately, that's not where society is right now.  

[Luv2play]

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this story yet. But if I went further I would be straying into politics. So let’s just wait and see. 

[Guest]

I’m not on board with the Gay bashing:

1. There’s nothing narcissistic or sociopathic in her resignation letter

2. She did not blame her circumstances on racial animus; she merely stated she has been the subject of it which is no doubt true

3. She lost her post the moment she was asked to testify; it was a shameful set-up and few if any could have navigated the bad faith successfully

4. There’s no consensus within the academic community that the allegations of plagiarism were serious or would have warranted disciplinary action let alone removal 

5. College and University presidents aren’t hired for their scholarship; they’re fundraisers and CEOs of multi-billion dollar corporations (note that many politics have retired from public service to assume roles in academia with no academic credentials)

6. While the response to calls for genocide must not be equivocal, Gay’s response to questioning by bad faith actors was understandably neutral in view of grievances about the lack of free speech on American college campuses by some of the very same politicians participating in the charade; had she answered any other way she would have been accused of suppressing free speech

7. There are significant issues to be addressed in higher education, but Gay is not the cause and her removal will not be the solution

8. Even if her conduct warranted removal, it doesn’t warrant the resulting denigration and demonization

If this post is considered political, the whole thread must be taken down, because the circumstances cannot be fully understood outside of the political context in which they arose.

[BSR]

8 hours ago, Km411 said:

She lost her post the moment she was asked to testify; it was a shameful set-up and few if any could have navigated the bad faith successfully

Because there is so much to unpack with your post, I'll take on just one point for now.  As much as I'd like to respond to all of them, I doubt I'll have the energy or motivation. 

Elise Stefanik did have a tough question waiting for Gay, but Gay's response to the easy question ("Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules on bullying and harassment?”) left Stefanik so flabbergasted that she never got to ask the "set-up" question:  "What are you going to do about it?"  That was the question Stefanik expected Gay to fumble because the first question is a no-brainer, as evidenced by Gay's retraction days later.

Forget the hearing, Gay's fate was sealed when for much too long she allowed calls for genocide of Jews to be expressed openly and freely at Harvard.  The hearing was simply the forum that made very public Gay's failure.  Pray tell, in what possible context (it all depends on the context, according to Gay) is the call for mass-murdering all gays/blacks/Muslims/or even redheads protected by free speech?  Any university president that allowed such calls for genocide of those other groups would be fired instantly, yet it took a House hearing to hold Gay accountable.  

[Guest]

Not buying it.

Rep. Elise Stefanik asked Gay the hypothetical question: "Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules on bullying and harassment?"

Gay responded, "The rules around bullying and harassment are quite specific and if the context in which that language is used amounts to bullying and harassment, then we take, we take action against it."

She did not say that calling for genocide was acceptable, she merely restated Harvard’s rule. The response was legalistic, evasive, and lacked empathy, but it was correct. She’s guilty only of hedging in her response, likely due to advice of counsel.

Also, pro-Palestinian students did not call for the genocide of Jews, they called for an end to the Israeli state. There’s a difference. One could debate whether such statements are protected free speech, which underscores the need to consider the context in applying rules against bullying and harassment.

[Monarchy79]

3 hours ago, BSR said:

Elise Stefanik did have a tough question waiting for Gay, but Gay's response to the easy question ("Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules on bullying and harassment?”) left Stefanik so flabbergasted that she never got to ask the "set-up" question:  "What are you going to do about it?"  That was the question Stefanik expected Gay to fumble because the first question is a no-brainer, as evidenced by Gay's retraction days later.

Forget the hearing, Gay's fate was sealed when for much too long she allowed calls for genocide of Jews to be expressed openly and freely at Harvard.  

The reason why Gay “failed” at answering this question was because she gave the exact same answer that she (along with any other President of a University) would give, if the subject of hate were blacks, homosexuals, or any other marginalized group that people are protected by the misinterpretation of free speech to abuse. 
 

She (strangely) didn’t understand that although misinterpretations of free speech can be used as a method to defend harmful language being spewed about other marginalized groups, this does not apply to Jews. 
 

[BSR]

2 hours ago, Km411 said:

Also, pro-Palestinian students did not call for the genocide of Jews, they called for an end to the Israeli state. There’s a difference. One could debate whether such statements are protected free speech, which underscores the need to consider the context in applying rules against bullying and harassment.

That is disgustingly disingenuous.  The "end of the Israeli state" is a thinly disguised way of calling for the genocide of the Jews because the only way to eliminate the state of Israel would be to kill all the Jews who live there.