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The odds of Harvard president Claudine Gay losing her job over shrugging at “Jewish genocide” were always slim.
Harvard is too big and too moneyed to care about some donors jumping ship. Claudine Gay wasn’t picked for the traditional reasons university presidents are selected, but to make a statement about its commitment to the new woke values.
The plagiarism scandal has been more awkward since it has ushered in the ultimate showdown between DEI and academic values.
Since the story first broke, the plagiarism problem has been getting worse forcing the more old-school voices in the media to begin covering it. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post have run op-eds suggesting that she should resign. CNN and the New York Times both conducted their own exposes of her plagiarism whose sheer scope is shattering.
The Ruth Marcus op-ed in the Post suggests that Gay’s critics are motivated by bad conservative agendas and that they’re right.
It’s become all but impossible to deny Gay’s plagiarism. Trying to defend it is a humiliating exercise. But that’s old-school thinking. New school thinking is ‘who gives a damn’ and the ‘whole concept of plagiarism was (probably) invented by dead white men who owned slaves’.
That’s the DEI approach. And it’s hard to say which one will win out in this showdown between academia and DEI.
The only remaining defense of Gay is to reject any of the values of academia. Even the most basic ones like ripping off other people’s work. And that’s what DEI wants to do.
What’s also at stake here is the question of whether we’re judged as individuals or as members of a group.
As an individual, Gay is inexcusable, but as a member of a group, she’s unimpeachable.
As a scholar and official, she should be fired, but as a woke black woman, she can’t.
These are the forces colliding in Gay’s case. Which of them wins out will say a lot about Harvard and the future of the university.
So, is the requirement to include a citation racism? If not, then is she an ‘academic psychopath’? As this seems to have been her approach to her entire academic career. Which is either ballsy or crazy.
Hollywood engaged in a bit of racial justice preening in 1967, when it released the movie “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” It starred Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn as the parents of a thoroughly white daughter who brought home a black suitor, played by Sidney Poitier. Stereotypes crumbled. Now imagine an updated version of the movie where the white daughter brought home love interest Claudine Gay, a definitely black something or other. Would Tracy and Hepburn be all in with that? We’ll never know. Thanks to a leveling “wokeness” (Gay as Exhibit A) there are no longer actors or actresses of the stature of Tracy and Hepburn in Hollywood.
Or Poitier. And he actually had to face stereotypes and bigotry rather than be rewarded just for being black. Sure, the people who cast him backed him but they bucked the trend.
It’s not like any of her professors were knowledgeable enough to spot Gay’s plagiarism. She probably could’ve plagiarized Shakespeare and got away with it.
Having been dressed down by my boss last week for a single missed item scan – as likely have millions of fellow workers (for some infraction or other!) – some resulting in job dismissal…..
Makes it obvious that ‘some are more equal than others!). DEI is a grifters magic bullet for rewards without the pesky memes of hard work and integrity!
Somebody around here suggested DEI should be changed to DIE. I think that’s funny.
” The only remaining defense of Gay is to reject any of the values of academia.. ”
“The elimination of Merit and Competency to attain any position, ,job, education, leadership etc… will destroy our civilization. ”
-Dr. Jordan Peterson
Interesting to me is that several recently-elevated Black women like Harvard President Claudine Gay and the newest Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson are both married to white men. Don’t know about other Black females in power, like Fani in GA, Chutkan in DC and the NY State A-G, but as they become increasingly annoying and overbearing, I would enjoy watching some Black men putting these broads in their place, non-violently of course! C’mon guys, step up to the plate.
Don’t give them any encouragement. Black guys are resentful enough when they see white men like me with black women. I don’t want to get shot.
Yeah, that’s one of the hazards.
All these “accommodations” that the LEFT deems necessary to assure success for minorities should be considered EXTREMELY RASICT!! They are essentially stating that minorities cannot succeed due to their OWN abilities! That simply diminishes any success that they would have! How demeaning is it to be considered a “token”?? I know most don’t care since they have the nothing job with the huge pay, but the ones who are TRULY successful on their own merits consider this insulting – as they should! Ms. gay GAY is clearly in the FIRST group!!
There are also reports that obama involved himself behind the scenes to pressure Harvard to keep her.
Did he need his knee pads for that?
Academia values its
1. Money
2. Prestige
3 Political influence
… (skip many)
45,000. Academic integrity
“What’s also at stake here is the question of whether we’re judged as individuals or as members of a group.”
Very true. Of course, us whitey’s are judged as both, so it’s lose/lose for us.