The brief, embattled presidency of Claudine Gay, Harvard’s first Black female president, began July 1, 2023, and ended Jan. 2, 2024. Dean of Harvard’s Arts and Sciences Faculty before ascending to the presidency, Gay returns to that tenured position after tendering a letter of resignation replete with blame.
It should have been mea culpa.
To quote Gay’s resignation letter: “[I]t has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor … and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.”
Credit: Copyright 2020 BILL ADLER - ALL
Credit: Copyright 2020 BILL ADLER - ALL
There’s much more, but what should be distressing is Gay’s seeming unwillingness, even in her resignation letter, to acknowledge shortcomings in her own scholarly rigor after numerous revelations of plagiarism. Harvard called it “duplicative language without appropriate attribution.” That she’s returning to faculty tarnishes Harvard’s reputation: Gay is in violation of Harvard’s stated plagiarism policy.
Blaming “attacks and threats” on “racial animus” is a slap in the face of Jewish students intimidated by “pro-Palestinian” activists on campus without consequence after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, slaughter of 1,200 innocent civilians in Israel. Gay ignored an advisory group formed to discuss antisemitism on campus before waffling in Washington about the “context” of antisemitism on campus, then slow walked apologizing until days later, when the outcry grew.
Later, in a New York Times op-ed, she wrote of the hearing, “I fell into a well-laid trap.” She added in the op-ed, “It is not lost on me that I make an ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety about the generational and demographic changes unfolding on American campuses: a Black woman selected to lead a storied institution.”
Fueled, perhaps, by her racial animus allegation, some of Gay’s defenders argue critics forced her resignation because she is a Black woman. Gay herself wrote, “I’ve been called the N-word more times than I care to count.” Not that her word is suspect, but she should name and shame such bigots.
When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. Does the “who” matter? Academics of various backgrounds and colors criticized Gay, the child of Haitian immigrants. To imply she’s the victim of conservatives or white people, and to suggest such shortcomings would be overlooked in a white male, is to stoke racial flames and divert attention from the genuine hurdles many Black Americans must overcome to succeed.
As a Black woman who lived and fled apartheid in South Africa to this land of opportunity, I find this victimhood defense particularly offensive. It’s disingenuous for this elite academic who achieved the top position at Harvard to claim martyrdom based on race or gender – or sexual preference or national origin, for that matter – for what is clearly her leadership failure. Especially as the president of an institution that, to its detriment, circled its wagons around diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and affirmative action programs.
Surely Harvard’s recruiters would have been eager to check a candidate’s academic credentials? Gay’s were lean, even before being diluted by plagiarism charges. Surely Harvard’s president would insist all students feel safe and welcomed? But at a school that discriminated against qualified Asian-American and white applicants until thwarted by the U.S. Supreme Court, “free speech” seemingly covered terroristic threats against Jewish students.
Let’s not stop with Gay. It’s an ethical failure, too, that the Harvard Corporation – the nonprofit organization that owns and oversees the university’s enormous financial assets – worked to cover up and deny these plagiarism charges, to the extent of siccing its lawyers on investigative reporters. The Corporation flouted the ubiquitous motto, “Veritas” – “truth” – emblazoned on every letterhead.
Alumni and donors who support this institution financially deserve better, and many have rightfully demanded Harvard clean house or lose their support. They cite Harvard’s protection of Gay despite her questionable academic and administrative actions. Allegations of racism or conservatives targeting liberal institutions of learning do nothing to change the fact that Harvard’s actions have been unconscionable.
Harvard’s reputation has taken a hit, first with the high court’s affirmative action decision, and now with Gay’s resignation, the reasons for it and actions behind it. Gay built her Harvard career on identity politics, so it’s no surprise she cites racial animus in her resignation. When the only tool you have is a hammer, goes the saying, every problem is a nail.
The question to ask Harvard is not whether she was targeted because she was a Black woman. It’s whether she was promoted and protected because she was a Black woman.
Benita Cotton-Orr is a public policy and communications consultant and former editorial board member of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She moved to Georgia from South Africa in 1986 and now lives in the North Georgia Mountains.
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