Harvard University has decided not to remove their current President Claudine Gay from the position, despite recent accusations that she plagiarized as a graduate student.
Gay has also been at the center of controversy over her refusal to condemn disgusting, genocidal antisemitic remarks on the university campus.
#Harvard has decided NOT to remove anti-Semitic woke President Claudine Gay despite recent accusations against her (or him, not sure) plagiarizing while a graduate student. pic.twitter.com/2F1qSigHh5
— Giordano Bruno (@GioBruno1600) December 12, 2023
Gay has been under fire after she – along with the presidents of a few other elite universities including UPenn Pres. Liz Magill who was forced to resign – affirmed that calling for the genocide of Jews was not against campus policy while giving Congressional testimony.
Then on Monday, Gay found herself in the middle of another scandal after Conservative journalist Chris Rufo posted evidence on X that claims Gay plagiarized several parts of her Phd thesis:
EXCLUSIVE: @RealChrisBrunet and I have obtained documentation demonstrating that Harvard President Claudine Gay plagiarized multiple sections of her Ph.D. thesis, violating Harvard's policies on academic integrity.
This is a bombshell. 🧵
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 10, 2023
Later in the paper, Gay also uses identical language to Swain, without adding quotation marks, as required. "Since the 1950s the reelection rate for House members has rarely dipped below 90 percent," reads Swain’s book, which is the same, excepting an added comma, to the language… pic.twitter.com/p6aM8776Hh
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 10, 2023
After a board meeting Monday night over whether or not to remove President Gay from her position, Harvard decided AGAINST it.
From The Harvard Crimson:
Harvard President Claudine Gay will remain in office with the support of the Harvard Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — following the conclusion of the board’s meeting on Monday, according to a source familiar with the decision.
The Corporation will announce the decision in a statement Tuesday morning, according to the source.
A University spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The resolution comes after the board left Gay’s fate stuck in limbo as the Corporation maintained its deafening silence for nearly a week, while Gay faced enormous backlash and calls to resign over her testimony in a congressional hearing about antisemitism on college campuses.
Gay’s position at the helm of Harvard grew increasingly more tenuous over the weekend as the Corporation was slow to show support for the University’s embattled president. Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 did not answer questions from a reporter on Sunday about whether she would ask Gay to resign from office.
The decision to allow Gay to stay on in her role as president comes following an outpouring of support for Gay from faculty and alumni after University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill resigned on Saturday.
Billionaire hedge fund manager and Harvard alumni Bill Ackman claims that the board will not oust Claudine Gay because they don’t want it to look like they are caving to what he wants done:
I have been told now by two reporters that one of the factors that made it challenging for the @Harvard board to fire Gay was that they were concerned it would look like they were kowtowing to me. https://t.co/QrgFHUVEJh
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) December 12, 2023
Bloomberg reported:
Claudine Gay will keep her job as president of Harvard University after weathering calls for her ouster over the school’s handling of campus antisemitism and her widely derided testimony in a congressional hearing last week.
“In this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay,” Harvard Corp., the school’s governing body, said in a statement Tuesday. “At Harvard, we champion open discourse and academic freedom, and we are united in our strong belief that calls for violence against our students and disruptions of the classroom experience will not be tolerated.”
Harvard is trying to quell a revolt by many alumni and wealthy donors including investor Bill Ackman, who have slammed her handling of rising antisemitism on campus amid the Israel-Hamas war. The criticism increasingly fed into a broader ideological battle over left-wing bias at elite universities, with Republicans and some donors seeing the debate as an opportunity to reshape US higher education.
Gay, a longtime professor who became Harvard’s first Black president on July 1, was bolstered by support from more than 700 faculty members who signed a petition urging the school to resist political pressures “at odds with Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom.” Before the university’s governing council announced its support for Gay, some former faculty members said Ackman had gone too far in questioning her credentials and appointment as Harvard president.
“Mr. Ackman and others are right to call attention to issues of antisemitism at his alma mater,” wrote David Thomas, president of Morehouse College and Ackman’s former professor at Harvard Business School. “To turn the question to the legitimacy of President Gay’s selection because she is a Black woman is a dog whistle we have heard before: Black and female equal not qualified. We must call it out.”
In the statement, Harvard emphasized that Gay has apologized for how she handled her congressional testimony and “committed to redoubling the university’s fight against antisemitism.”
The university also addressed allegations of plagiarism in Gay’s academic writings that had arisen in recent weeks. The university said it became aware of the accusations in late October and scrutinized Gay’s work at her request.
The review “revealed a few instances of inadequate citation,” the school said. “While the analysis found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications.”
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What do you think?
Hi @Harvard,
Keeping Claudine Gay as President means you condone anti-Semitism, racism and plagiarism.
"Elite" institution, my ass.
You are nothing more than a corrupt Marxist indoctrination factory that traffics in evil.
— Monica Crowley (@MonicaCrowley) December 12, 2023
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