December 26, 2023

"Harvard University faculty are calling for members of its governing board to step down as a way to reset the university as it struggles..."

"... with historic reputational damage and demands for the resignation of its embattled president, Claudine Gay.... Faculty who fretted for years that the school is ceding ground on free speech to appease advocates of diversity, equity and inclusion feel newly empowered to raise their concerns...."

From "As Pressure on Harvard President Increases, University Board Feels the Squeeze/Critics of Harvard Corporation call for resignations, fault the board’s insularity for recent missteps" (Wall Street Journal).
The Harvard Corporation, the 12-member governing body, is the oldest corporation in the Western Hemisphere....

Several professors interviewed said the board's run of avoidable errors began with Gay's selection as president last December. They worried she was hired without the proper vetting or experience....

The stakes are especially high because not only is Gay the president of the most renowned university in the nation, she is the institution's first Black leader....

"She's become a symbol of a movement, and if she has to resign that sends a terrible signal. So it is just a no-win situation here," said Dr. Jeffrey Fredberg, a research professor of bioengineering and physiology at Harvard's School of Public Health. 
Kit Parker, professor of bioengineering and applied physics, said the school is at an inflection point, and to change the trajectory members of the corporation need to step down. "The big question now is, how arrogant is Harvard? And when I say Harvard, I mean the Harvard Corporation. Do they think this is going to go away?"

120 comments:

rehajm said...

The stakes are especially high because not only is Gay the president of the most renowned university in the nation...

It is fair to say they have relinquished that title, which is now up for grabs...

rehajm said...

The magnitude of Harvard's arrogance is not in question...

There are at least two plagiarists involved in this soap opera- Kearns Goodwin and Gay...and does Gay have any credibility academically with anyone interested in standards? Does Harvard have any interest in standards?

We warned you about promoting the diversity hires without them earning the promotion. This one is extreme. Now you just look more stupid...

Give credit to those of us not succumbing to the propaganda. A big academic eff you to those who mocked us for questioning it. You know who you are...

n.n said...

Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class bigotry), Equivocation, and Indoctrination (DEI) is a first-order forcing of forward-looking deficits of past, present, and progressive character development.

rehajm said...

Most embarrassing is the hundreds of Harvard faculty who signed on support for Gay- they can all be written off as intellectual lightweights

William said...

If I were Jewish, I certainly wouldn't want to enroll or teach there. And that's not to mention all the donors who will look to send their money elsewhere. On the plus side, they have a Black president who's totally committed to free speech in certain contexts. So when you weigh the pros and cons, there's that. Plus Obama likes her. Harvard might go on in time to preempt Howard as the preeminent black college in America.

Dave Begley said...

Gay must be fired. The fact that she hasn’t is already a giant problem.

The entire Board also needs to go.

I don’t know how Harvard does it, but at Creighton the President selects the Board. And the Board hires the President.

In a regular private corporation, the shareholders elect the Board. Harvard alums should elect the new Board. Mail-in ballots.

gspencer said...

Copy found on Don Draper's desk,

"Come to Harvard; Our president cheats and so can you"

Michael said...


There are a host of organizations out there who went all-in on a diversity hire that turned out is a disaster. But now they're stuck because who wants to publicly admit their loudly touted first Something-Something leader is, in fact, a dolt.

It's not just Harvard and it's not just Fortune 500 or big name nonprofits.

Stick said...

NOW you are worried! You weren't worried before your Nazi censorship was called out & costing your employer a buttload of money. Stew in your own soup.

Big Mike said...

"The big question now is, how arrogant is Harvard? And when I say Harvard, I mean the Harvard Corporation. Do they think this is going to go away?" Emphasis in the original]

In my experience, Harvard and arrogance go together like flies on shit. But bad as the plagiarism is, if the charge of data falsification holds up then Harvard has a stark choice between dumping Claudine Gay or admitting that the scientific papers it publishes are likely to be nothing but bullshit.

retail lawyer said...

Obama can straighten this situation out. Not to worry.

Leland said...

This s the way.

William said...

Maybe they should hire Cornel West if he agrees to forgo his candidacy. Although he's wrong about everything, he's never been accused of plagiarism and he can be counted on to further the DEI program. Most importantly he's Black and his withdrawal from the race will benefit the Democrat presidential candidate President Gay should announce that she's retiring because of breast cancer. This should make her immune to all further criticism.

Humperdink said...

Permit me to repeat an earlier comment: "I hope she stays". Let them swim in their own dung.

Christopher B said...

Leftists eventually turn on their own.

Breezy said...

Gay will go, but won’t go cheaply.

Gusty Winds said...

...the president of the most renowned university in the nation

OK. Renowned. I can settle for "well known". But until Universities quit selling prestige and start focusing on education and free thought, they're doomed, and we're doomed. The entire system needs a reboot, but that would mean getting rid of a lot of people. That's impossible because nobody leaves the Ivory Tower.

Musk did it with Twitter. He purged and made it better. Rebranded it X. Now it's a free speech platform, and much more intelligent and engaging. Driving libs at universities nuts.

TreeJoe said...

The fact that Harvard hasn’t fired her, that so many professors stood behind her, and that she has now repeatedly failed her first true leadership test for coming up on 3 months and plenty of time to pivot and begin leading…

My opinion of Harvard was already low. It’s now plummeted. They obvious do not teach or support principled leadership.

The president and board should now resign as one.

gilbar said...

Lets Face Facts. They CAN NOT fire her.. EVER. If Harvard let her go, the headline would read:
Harvard Fires Gay Black Woman
That is NEVER going to happen. They are Stuck with her

John henry said...

When the Penn dean resigned, I predicted that Gay would be out by the first of the year.

I stand by that prediction. I now think it will be a lot uglier than I expected 2 weeks ago. But she is gone, gone, gone.

John Henry

Gusty Winds said...

Faculty who fretted for years that the school is ceding ground on free speech to appease advocates of diversity, equity and inclusion feel newly empowered to raise their concerns....

Why can't you have free speech and diversity on a college campus at the same time? Guess we've learned the two are naturally opposed to each other. Why you ask? Because, for example, women with penises are not women...they are men. But...to implement that as a value of diversity, you have to shut down common sense and any opposition.

And what's with the cowardly faculty who NOW feel empowered because president Gay embarrassed herself and Harvard in front of the world? Too bad they went along to get along and let free speech and thought be destroyed along with higher education.

John henry said...

I've seen some comments here and elsewhere about Gays family in Haiti and how they pretty elite. I've not been able to find much.

I did find some info on her uncle which, while not that relevant to this situation I thought interesting.

He is a very successful civil engineer with a mostly US practice. From what I found, he will never be accused of being an affirmative action promotion.

In several articles about Gay, her cousin Roxane Gay is mentioned. Wikipedia says:

Roxane Gay (born October 15, 1974)[1][2] is an American writer, professor, editor, and social commentator. Gay is the author of The New York Times best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist (2014), as well as the short story collection Ayiti (2011), the novel An Untamed State (2014), the short story collection Difficult Women (2017), and the memoir Hunger (2017).

There is no wikipedia entry for her father, Michael Gay the civil engineer. Writing feminist novels is apparently more meaningful in the US than actually doing things and building stuff.

Roxane's article mentions that he owns a cement company in Haiti. But he seems to have bought that because he was a successful engineer. Not been a successful engineer because he owned a cement company.

To fog of bullshit is strong with Gay and her cousin.

John Henry

hawkeyedjb said...

This reminds me of the affair of Ward Churchill, the Pretendian who was hired then eventually elevated to department chair at the University of Colorado. When found to be an academic fraud, Churchill defenders responded (correctly) that he was hired to be anti-American and Indian, and that he had fulfilled those duties. "Now you want academic achievement from me? Talk about changing the rules..." Only when Churchill was found to have only tenuous or non-existent ties to Native American ancestry was he finally booted.

Nobody is going to discover that Claudine Gay is not black or female. Those are the qualities for which she was hired, and everyone inside and outside Harvard knows it. Everyone. I think her position is secure, especially since Harvard went all the way to the Supreme Court to defend its practice of hiring and admitting by identity. The University is not going to abandon its existential worldview to satisfy a few complainers. And Harvard has the money to say FU to a few unhappy donors.

Dogma and Pony Show said...

It seems that Harvard, like so many other modern institutions, failed to absorb the lesson of Jackie Robinson, which is that America will embrace and celebrate diversity when the "diverse" individual deserves his or her success on the merits. By contrast, when success is conferred on some undeserving soul merely for the sake of diversity, Americans see that as unfair and we tend to think less of everyone involved.

cassandra lite said...

“They worried she was hired without the proper vetting or experience”?

LOL, as the kids used to say. She was hired with exactly the vetting and experience they were looking for to burnish their DEI cred. They know it, and she knows it, which is why her threat to sue if she’s fired is so scary. Discovery would indict them all.

tim maguire said...

it is just a no-win situation here,"

Good. That’s exactly what they deserve.

CJinPA said...

Several professors interviewed said the board's run of avoidable errors began with Gay's selection as president last December.

"She's become a symbol of a movement..."

See, they weren't "errors." She is doing what she was hired to do: advance The Movement.

The Movement is rarely witnessed by the general public in the light of day, unfiltered by The Movement's media guardians. That's what happened here. Everyone at Harvard knew why Claudine Gay was hired, and they know that she performed as expected.

Robert Cook said...

That Ms. Gay is the president of "the most renowned university in the nation" makes it all the more urgent that she be asked to resign immediately (or be fired outright) for her history of plagiarism, going back to her student days and continuing thereafter. To allow her to continue in her position screams loudly that Harvard does not really care about plagiarism specifically or academic dishonesty and fraud in general...at least, when some people do it.

Bob Boyd said...

Gay absolutely should sue. Whatever you think of Claudine Gay, she has done exactly what Harvard hired her to do.
I'm not saying she doesn't have to go, but I think it's equally important she not be the only one to get the boot. She's a scapegoat. Harvard was perfectly happy with her until they weren't. These big donors were perfectly happy with her until it was their ox being gored.
They felt entitled to have whatever they wanted before and they feel entitled to have whatever they want now. I don't think they've learned a thing.

Temujin said...

I assure you that the board's (and the University's) problems did not begin with the hiring of Claudine Gay. No more than the election of Donald Trump was the beginning of a 'problem' with half the citizens of the country. Trump was and is nothing more than a symptom. Claudine Gay is also a visible symptom, though in her case it's like a suddenly very visible tumor showing the disease that has been rotting the 'U' from within for years.

"She's become a symbol of a movement." Well, yes. And that movement is one of anti-intellectualism. Not a good movement to have taken hold in what was once the most prestigious university in all of North America.

That the adults in the room had no stomach to deal with such a childish behavior and attitude is the story here. It is the story all across America. Where are the adults in the room? The 'Board' is supposed to be that.

Bob Boyd said...

When I say I don't think they've learned a thing, I hope they prove me wrong.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I am 100% for a revived and vigorous FREE SPEECH movement on all campuses with a very healthy restriction on interrupting classroom instruction, ticketed events and official ceremonies. The Supreme Court has been quite clear that “time and space” restrictions on speech are necessary to protect innocent bystanders. The rules should be published and implemented consistently and every student should be required to agree in writing with the understanding that they would suffer consequences up to expulsion for violation of the policy.

Outside agitators who violate the rules should be arrested and prosecuted for disturbing the peace. All faculty should be bound to the same rules. This would facilitate more speech, more civility and respect. The level of hate and violence perpetrated by leftists is out of control. The list of conservatives physically assaulted on campuses or forced to barricade themselves from mobs is long and should result in administrative changes but it hasn’t. May God keep these brave Harvard staff and faculty safe as they take on the hateful DEI behemoth.

Dave Begley said...

Bruce Rhode was the CEO of ConAgra in Omaha. He told me this story. He was Chairman of the Creighton Board when Fr. Morrison retired. Morrison had put Rhode on the Board.

Rhode told me that he had "a really Catholic friend" in MT who had called him. Said Creighton needed to hire this Jesuit who was then President at the University of San Francisco: John Schlegel, S.J.

Rhode didn't know about Schlegel at all. Didn't even know that he had taught at Creighton.

Rhode and the other members of the Board interview and then hire him. Fr. Schlegel later told the Press that he had an "escape" clause from USF that he could take the Creighton job with no financial penalty. Probably a little gilding of the lily there. And he donated his entire salary to the Wisconsin province anyway.

Schlegel earned his PhD from Oxford. No cheating. It was published in paperback. While at Oxford, he met Bill Clinton.

All of the above is true.

Temujin said...

Michael said: "It's not just Harvard and it's not just Fortune 500 or big name nonprofits."

Correct. It is also your governments- at all levels. And your media covering, really, being mouthpieces for those multiple levels of government. The key is not to promote people 'left behind' by picking some sort of born-with characteristic as their highest quality. The key is to allow for school choice all across the nation. To improve the education from K-12 so that by the time they graduate, we have thinking, capable young people who need only further lessons and the wisdom coming from those who came before them.

Right now? We don't educate the kids, but we do graduate them. And we tell them their best (or worst) qualities are those they are born with, that they had nothing whatsoever to do with. And we tell them to flaunt those aspects of themselves to get ahead in this new America. If you expected competence as you look around your world today, you will be greatly disappointed. Claudine Gay is not a rarity. She's the norm today.

Dave Begley said...

I should add that the current Creighton President earned his PhD from Columbia and recently published a book that was well-reviewed. No cheating.

Dave Begley said...

Temujin at 8:51. Agree 1,000%.

Fr. Schlegel always said, "A Jesuit education teaches you how to think; not what to think."

wildswan said...

The solution to Harvard's dilemma is to appoint as President of Harvard Carol Swain, the person Claudine Gay plagiarized from the most. Obviously Carol Swain is qualified because Claudine Gay qualified herself by plagiarizing from Carol Swain so Carol Swain as the original author is at least equally qualified and, without doubt, more honest and hard-working. She is also black. But in her time she has deviated from required GoodBlackThink and been assailed for honest thinking much like a white conservative or a Jew. In short, she knows that what racism is and how it still lives in scars from the past that she no doubt bears like all the others and in present-day sneaky attacks of an ugly nature but she also knows that DEI is not the way out. And so she can see all sides of the situation in which people at Harvard find themselves. Such a person is needed at Harvard - and as I say, as the person from whom Claudine Gay plagiarized, Carol Swain is obviously qualified so no need for a long search. The same committee can just appoint the real scholar.

Bob Boyd said...

There are many practices, particularly the repression of unpopular opinions, that contravene [Harvard’s] commitment to truth

And yet it is the expression of what turned out to be a not unpopular opinion on campus that has the board calling for Claudine Gay's head and looking high and low for justifications to lop it off.

her fundraising ability...may be diminished

And there you have it.

Justabill said...

There are Harvard faculty who have fretted for years about declining free speech? Odd that no one ever seems to have said anything before now, being tenured scholars and all.

Charlie said...

All of this couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of folks!

michaele said...

John henry, should you revisit the comments section and read down to mine. My husband was a work colleague of Michael Gay's when they both were employed by a big Omaha NE based construction company. When Mr. Gay retired at a youngish age from that company and returned to Haiti, he went back with lots of knowledge and contacts in the construction industry. We crossed paths with him and his wife at several retirement gatherings and he always gave the impression of immense financial success although he did not seem to have the type of personality that was afflicted with braggadocio.

PB said...

More than the board needs to go. Lots of administrators and faculty need to go.

Bob Boyd said...

Firing Claudine Gay is like putting a Band-aid on an infection.

John henry said...

Blogger hawkeyedjb said...

Nobody is going to discover that Claudine Gay is not black

I am.

She is not "black". Like Obama and Kamala Harris, she is not ADOS (American Descendant of Slavery) Her skin may be black but her culture is not. Her culture comes from Haiti. VERY different. Better in some ways, worse in others but very different. She is no more "black" than the American born daughter of black skinned immigrants from Dominican Republic might be.

There has been a lot written about the experience of blacks in the US whose ancestry is via the Caribbean rather than direct from Africa. As a group, they do significantly better, with but often without the benefit of affirmative action than ADOS blacks.

Lots of theories about why but no controversy about the fact they do better by virtually all measures.

John Henry

Neighborhood Retail Alliance said...

Michael said...

There are a host of organizations out there who went all-in on a diversity hire that turned out is a disaster. But now they're stuck because who wants to publicly admit their loudly touted first Something-Something leader is, in fact, a dolt.

Kamala Harris could not be reached for comment

Yancey Ward said...

I might well overdose on schadenfreude.

minnesota farm guy said...

@ Dave Begley The Harvard alumni elect the board from a slate of nominees. Over the past few years we have been offered fewer and fewer nominees with real world experience and an increasing number of academics and NGO types. It has gotten so bad that I have stopped voting.

Neighborhood Retail Alliance said...


retail lawyer said...
Obama can straighten this situation out. Not to worry.

Harvard president Claudine Gay is being pressured to step down over charges of plagiarism as former president Obama lobbies the administration to stick with her. That makes sense because Obama is a Harvard law alum, like Gay soft on campus anti-Semitism, and no stranger to plagiarism his own self.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/12/presidential-plagiarism.php

John henry said...

How is Kearns involved? I know that she is a plagiarist but I don't think I have seen her accused of academic/scholarly plagiarism. Is she accused of plagiarism at Harvard?


What is Kearns connection to Harvard?

And, I would note in keeping with Ann's LBJ themette this week, Kearns is also notable to fucking LBJ back in the day when he was still haunting the earth.

John Henry

John henry said...

David Begley,

Michael Gay, her uncle the civil engineer is from Omaha.

Got any skinny on him?

John Henry

minnesota farm guy said...

The Gay situation brought to mind article 134 of the UCMJ that so many of us joked about when it applied to us. Article 134 states: "Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special, or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court"

The essence of Article 134 should apply as much in civilian life as it does in the military. There is no question in my mind that Gay - and the Harvard Corporation - have brought discredit on Harvard University and they should be relieved of duty at the very least.

tim in vermont said...

Keep her there. It would be unfair to single out just one fraud just because people noticed she was a fraud when somebody actually critically read her published work!

Joe Smith said...

"She's become a symbol of a movement, and if she has to resign that sends a terrible signal. So it is just a no-win situation here,"

There is a win here.

You fire her for plagiarism and you admit that you hired an unqualified person for the position based on her race.

Then find someone competent to run the place.

It's the simple Bandaid conundrum...fast or slow.

narciso said...

previously prince talal, I changed his name and some details for my novel jambiya, funded a number of chairs at cambridge (both coasts) new haven, georgetown, et al, most recently the qataris have taken over the slack, they also handle synagogue security through an associate of ali soufan, as armin rosen has noted in the Tablet, (actually the Tablet covers most of these issues as well as the Free Beacon, perhaps the Federalists,

Joe Smith said...

'Plus Obama likes her.'

Let's see all of his academic records, including his applications, then we can talk...

Original Mike said...

"To allow her to continue in her position screams loudly that Harvard does not really care about plagiarism specifically or academic dishonesty and fraud in general...at least, when some people do it."

Robert, Harvard doesn't care. They may be forced to back down, but make no mistake as to where their priorities lie. Merit is a tool of the oppressor.

Mason G said...

"So it is just a no-win situation here"

How did this come to be? Don't the people involved regularly tell everyone they're the best and brightest? You'd think bright people would have figured out where things were heading and done something to rectify the situation well before it got to this point, wouldn't you?

BTW- aren't these the same bright people who are running the government?

Greg the Class Traitor said...

The beats go on:

https://www.dossier.today/p/these-scholars-asked-claudine-gay

Turns out Gay is guilty of data falsification, not just plagiarism. (No, in science you can NOT refuse to give other researchers the data that underlies your published paper)

Anthony said...

I had my first taste of diversity hiring in the early 2000s (maybe late 1990s). Was working for a local government entity (in Seattle) and they picked out a new IT manager who was a black female. Everyone knew she knew virtually nothing about IT. We'd sit in meetings with her discussing some technical issue and she'd start yammering with business-speak slogans and everyone would just sit and stare because we had no clue what she was even talking about.

Then we had a big investigation by the legal dept. because she claimed we were all stealing her stuff* and a couple people were just shouting the word "Ni**er!" over their cubicle walls. Happily, at least, the investigation (done by a really good friend of mine who I trusted) found nothing and she was canned. I have a feeling today she would have been promoted.

* Interestingly (or not) I was informed by said friend that staplers apparently disappear from everyone's desks at an alarming rate.

** Said friend, who is/was a standard sort of Democrat, eventually left said local government agency because it went completely off the rails, politics-wise.

Michael K said...

There has been a lot written about the experience of blacks in the US whose ancestry is via the Caribbean rather than direct from Africa. As a group, they do significantly better, with but often without the benefit of affirmative action than ADOS blacks.

Lots of theories about why but no controversy about the fact they do better by virtually all measures.

John Henry


This is a small scandal at the heart of affirmative action. Colin Powell's son is just one example. Lots of non slave descendants taking advantage. African blacks are also doing well, especially the Igbo tribe from Nigeria.

Dave Begley said...

John Henry:

I don't know everyone in Omaha.

rehajm said...

How is Kearns involved? I know that she is a plagiarist but I don't think I have seen her accused of academic/scholarly plagiarism. Is she accused of plagiarism at Harvard? What is Kearns connection to Harvard?

You have it- that’s all. The school’s high profile plagiarist what escaped accountability. A Harvard Overseer, likely diversity appointment at a time when Harvard was old white men…

Darkisland said...

To be clear, it is not just the Caribbean black immigrants who do better it is their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

It also does not seem to matter much whether they originated in the English, Spanish, Dutch or French speaking Caribbean

John Henry

Original Mike said...

"No, in science you can NOT refuse to give other researchers the data that underlies your published paper"

Well, unless you're Michael Mann. Or the EPA.

narciso said...



even the second tier ivies

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/a-cruel-summer-at-cornell

narciso said...

thats called a bellesiles, you know they still gave him another book contract after that fiasco re gun records in San Francisco

The Vault Dweller said...

If she gets fired now, the question will be why didn't they fire her earlier? IF the answer is because they didn't know about her academic mal/mis-feasance the question will be why didn't you do any proper examination of her record before hiring her? If she is fired now most people will understand that though people will cite academic history the real reason is because of her action and lack of action regarding campus activity in relation to Israel/Palestine. I don't think that firing her will do anything to preserve Harvard's reputation. But I do think that it might preserve some donations.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

How is it that a southern preacher with a degree from Morehouse College, knew what escapes the smartest people in any room in America, today?

“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Shorter: Whenever race is taken into account, for anything; it's a recipe for disaster.

How did it escape them that if you are going to consider color, you better pick the most qualified pwerson of color?

The answer is very simple. DEI is a journey backwards, with a significant change. This time, the people in power are the people of color.

Greg the Class Traitor said...

"She's become a symbol of a movement, and if she has to resign that sends a terrible signal. So it is just a no-win situation here," said Dr. Jeffrey Fredberg, a research professor of bioengineering and physiology at Harvard's School of Public Health.

1: The "Movement" she's a "symbol" of is pure racist evil
2: Here's a hint: If you're going to pick someone to be a "symbol" for your "Movement", you should perhaps try to find someone who is worthy of that role.
3: When you double down on incompetence and evil ('"genocide of Jews" is perfectly fine' is evil), the (correct and true) message you send about your "Movement" is that it's garbage, and should be destroyed

Finally, everything that is wrong with the Left can be found in this situation:
1: There's no right or wrong, no principles. Just "what brings power to our side"
2: There's no individual merit, there's just "what does this mean for the group?"

Bob Boyd said...

Maybe Harvard can be partitioned...like the Korean Penninsula.

Big Mike said...

It may be worth noting that the president of Stanford University was forced to resign over data falsification issues. In the case of Marc Tessier-Lavigne, a scientific panel found that he did not directly have a hand in falsifying data, but that he did not properly oversee members of his lab who did. By contrast, in the case of Claudine Gay there is no question that if the data has been “adjusted” or, worse, invented as had been alleged, then there is no question but that she was personally involved.

rcocean said...

I don't have access to the article but I hate this "some say" "Harvard Professsors" "under pressure" crap.

Who SPECIFICALLY is calling for the board to resign? Why SPECIFICALLY is Gay and the board supposed to resign?

Its obvious the ADL and the Big Jewish Donors (and friends) are out for the scalp of Gay and the board since they don't hate Palestinians enough and don't love Jews enough. How dare brown people oppose Israel killing 20,000 Gazans and the Ethnic cleansing of Gaza. That's blunt, but its the truth.

You have to wonder why a University with $30-50 Billion dollar endowment is so senstitive to pressure from the big Donors. They don't really need the money, its just disguised bribery. But anyway, its humorous that a University that cares little for Academic Freedom and was so tolerant of anti-WHite and anti-Christians behavior and policies, is now self-destructing because Jews feel "Uncomfortable" at Harvard.

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of Leftists.

Howard said...

Keep sweating the small shit. It's what Soros wants

Smilin' Jack said...

This is cool! Used to be that only a few hundred students at a time could benefit from a Harvard education, and it was expensive. Now it’s teaching the entire country something for free! The lesson is very engaging and entertaining and looks to go on for some time. Go Harvard!

narciso said...

now there is an interesting class dynamic here, professor gay, is from a wealthy haitian family, roland fryer who pioneered ground breaking research comes from the school of hard knox, as does Carol Swain,

Pillage Idiot said...

The Harvard faculty supporting Gay BEFORE the evidence is examined, reminds me very much of the Duke 88 screaming about rape culture before the facts in that case.

It appears that "elite" universities have not hired based on critical thinking skills for quite some time!

Kevin said...

If the organization is struggling with historic repetitional damage, why shouldn't the board step down?

If this doesn't rise to the level of mass board resignations, what does?

narciso said...

they aren't really they are like the board of spectre, as I point out the other variables, like DEI mandates, from companies on the board,

Aggie said...

When Harvard declares by their secret choices that affirmative action is their objective, you should believe them. The donors are right to close their checkbook, and Congress should be taking some good, old-fashioned interest on the taxability of their endownment's investment income. That would take some of that pompous starch out, pronto.

Jupiter said...

I'm guessing it would be worth a LOT to Harvard University to have Dr. Gay resign. Maybe a billion? Sure, why not? They've got it, and plenty more. The question is, how do they arrange the payoff?

Let's see, how did Obama get rich? Oh, yeah. "Book advances".

Greg the Class Traitor said...

rcocean said...
Who SPECIFICALLY is calling for the board to resign? Why SPECIFICALLY is Gay and the board supposed to resign?

Hmm, maybe because she's a pro-genocide plagiarist who's unqualified for the role?

of, what, you like teh genocide of Jews, so that's why you don't see a problem

Its obvious the ADL and the Big Jewish Donors (and friends) are out for the scalp of Gay and the board since they don't hate Palestinians enough and don't love Jews enough. How dare brown people oppose Israel killing 20,000 Gazans and the Ethnic cleansing of Gaza. That's blunt, but its the truth.

No, it's fucking delusional bullshit from a scumbag.
1: Anyone who repeats claims from Hamas, which is what your'e doing here, is an obvious and pathetic liar. Go play in the hospital parking lot that Hamas bombed, and then claimed that Israel bombed the hospital.
2: Hamas, the government of Gaza, started a war with Israel. They started it by invading, and then deliberately raping, torturing, and murdering Israeli civilians.
I realize you get a complete sexual thrill out of all that happening to Jews, but for normal human beings, that was a bad thing

And the correct Israeli response is to go to war against Gaza, and completely and utterly destroy the place until Hamas is gone

See: US, Pearl Harbor, WWII, Japan, Germany.
See also: Hiroshima, Nagasaki

Oh, I note that Egypt proposed a permanent cease fire, that Hamas rejected. I also note that rcocean doesn't have a problem with Hamas rejecting a cease fire.

Because he's not pro peace. He's not pro "brown people". He's just a worthless piece of shit who's desperately eager for Jews to be raped, tortured, and murdered

Original Mike said...

Blogger Bob Boyd said..."Maybe Harvard can be partitioned...like the Korean Penninsula."

Funny.

There was a time I expected that the abandonment of merit would not extend into the STEM fields. How could it?, I naively reasoned. And I would have been content with that outcome; the humanities aren't that important, anyways. Unfortunately, that is not how it is playing out.

Dude1394 said...

"Dave Begley said...
Gay must be fired. The fact that she hasn’t is already a giant problem.

The entire Board also needs to go."

Just so

Original Mike said...

"How dare brown people oppose Israel killing 20,000 Gazans and the Ethnic cleansing of Gaza."

Must be up to 30,000 by now.

narciso said...

fryer's research went counter to the so called blm cry about police shootings, so he had to be shot down with some bogus harassment charge,

gay is much like derrick bell in spinning narratives that have little to do with reality,

narciso said...


shes the right sort like Alger Hiss, Holmes clerk, State Department, et al, others like Fryer or even McWhorter, too likely prospect of wrong think,

Kevin said...

She's become a symbol of a movement

A female of color the board is too afraid to fire no matter her misdeeds?

I think they nailed it.

Deep State Reformer said...

Oh no! Let the Ivy schools and other elite institutions discredit themselves.(Didn't Napoleon once say something about not interrupting your enemy when they're making a mistake?) Speaking for myself, I would just love it if merely quoting a study from Harvard or a opinion piece from the New York Times or whatever and etc didn't get everybody sucking air out of the room bc one cannot argue with such authority and the received wisdom that was being expressed and instead we're just treated as ordinary Lefty propaganda which is basically what it is.

John henry said...

Blogger Dave Begley said...

I don't know everyone in Omaha.

Aww, I'm disappointed. Omaha is not that big

Get cracking, David. I expect a different answer next December.

(Just kidding)

John Henry

Bruce Hayden said...

“Turns out Gay is guilty of data falsification, not just plagiarism. (No, in science you can NOT refuse to give other researchers the data that underlies your published paper)”

Well, not always. The ClimateGate cabal refused to disclose their underlying data, on the grounds that it would be used against them, and their claims for CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) (ultimately replaced by the unfalsifiable Climate Change after having been effectively falsified). And, yes, they also claimed them to be their trade secrets. The amazing thing was that they were all White Males and got away with it (though I suspect one of them was Gay, maybe). It seemed to work at least for those working for the East Anglia Climate Research Unit. Maybe not so well, for Michael Mann, whose “hockey stick” turned out to have been the result of bad statistical methodology he utilized as a PhD Candidate.

tim in vermont said...

By Howard's own logic, he is getting all worked up and upset, (the proof is that he wrote a comment) about what a bunch of random people on a blog are writing. Of course, it is possible, that like us, Howard just likes to throw his two cents in, but if you read his comments and take him at his word, you would have to assume that Howard is really tortured by the fact that this blog exists.

John henry said...

Blogger narciso said...

professor gay, is from a wealthy haitian family

Not saying that she isn't. Her immigrant parents apparently did really well for themselves. Able to send her to fancy schools like Exeter and Harvard.

But when I tried to look, I could not find anything one way or the other. Do you have any info about her parent's background?

Any kind of search for "gay" or even "Claudine Gay" and Haiti is pretty useless turning up thousands of article on AIDS, homosexuality and similar.

She is not that dark skinned leading me to think she might be creole ancestry. Creole, lighter-skinned, Haitians do a lot better in Haiti than black Haitians. There is a significant class divide with not much intermixing between groups. Or it used to be that way. I don't know if it has changed and how in the past 20-30 years.

John Henry

loudogblog said...

The Harvard Corporation is not the oldest corporation in the Western hemisphere. It was started in 1650.

The oldest corporation in the Western hemisphere is The Shirley Company that was started in 1638.

See how deep the ethical rot in Harvard goes? They crow that their corporation was the "first corporation in the Western hemisphere" and don't really care that that statement is false. The next thing you know, they'll be telling us that Professor Kingsfield was one of their greatest scholars.

Mason G said...

"The Harvard faculty supporting Gay BEFORE the evidence is examined, reminds me very much of the Duke 88 screaming about rape culture before the facts in that case."

Reminds me of Gov. Lepetomane (Mel Brooks) [pointing to a member of his cabinet] : "I didn't get a "harrumph" out of that guy!", and none of the Duke 88 wanting to be "that guy".

jim said...

My initial reaction to all this is that what she plagiarised is some catch phrases and cliches.

But I suppose, her field being polisci, that can be the entire entire content of a research paper. I mostly think she was real sloppy, perhaps another hallmark of her field.

Dave Begley said...

Many libs in Nebraska are of the firm opinion that I have brought discredit to the legal profession and Creighton University.

"But a man may be known, and perhaps best known by his enemies. Is it not so?" David Mamet.

narciso said...

thats what wesley yang found it, her father ostensibly worked for the army corps of engineer,

Creighton like Georgetown seems to be a box of bollocks,

the dynamic i was going for like hiss vs chambers (who was columbia, who even went into the illegals part of the KGB, thats how he new about the networks inside the US government

rehajm said...

See how deep the ethical rot in Harvard goes?

I see. One statue but three lies. At least they’re efficient…

mikee said...

Gay was the first Black president of Harvard, sure, but her performance does nothing to limit the likelihood of other POC in that role, people who while non-white may also perform in the role in legendary fashion. Being the FIRST BLACK anything is so overpromoted these days, after so many firsts and seconds and thirds and nths by Blacks in important roles, that Gay's successors will likely look back upon her skin color as being just about as important as Larry Summer's waist measurement when he presided at Harvard.

Bob Boyd said...

And I would have been content with that outcome; the humanities aren't that important, anyways.

Yes. There's no way STEM could possibly remain untouched.
The humanities are important. Unless you're content to yield the entire legal profession, judges, legislators, prosecutors cops and all to the dark side.
And the entire educational establishment. How long could STEM fields remain untouched after that? They might still be making achievements and discoveries in science and engineering, but in service of what ends? STEM exists to serve humanity and it will be used for that purpose for good or ill.

narciso said...

one might say Willima James pragmatism had a lot to do with whats wrong, as with the German philosophy that Wilson absorbed at John Hopkins and introduced to Princeton then the Governorship,

Static Ping said...

Oh, she was properly vetted. They made sure her skin was dark enough and she was superficially academically qualified. The only question is whether her disdain of the Jews was a surprise or a feature.

M Jordan said...

Two big winners in this saga — Christopher Rufo and Elise Stefanik. Stefanik did what no Arepublican man is ever able to do: grill and kill a liberal in a congressional hearing. Her grilling should be training film material for all to come. Rufo doggedly dug up one turd of plagiarism after another. Both were unafraid of being called racists and that’s the biggest key to their successes.

Original Mike said...

"The humanities are important. Unless you're content to yield the entire legal profession, judges, legislators, prosecutors cops and all to the dark side."

Yeah, I guess so. Unfortunately, they're already lost.

Keith said...

ROcean said:

"Its obvious the ADL and the Big Jewish Donors (and friends) are out for the scalp of Gay and the board since they don't hate Palestinians enough and don't love Jews enough. How dare brown people oppose Israel killing 20,000 Gazans and the Ethnic cleansing of Gaza. That's blunt, but its the truth.

You have to wonder why a University with $30-50 Billion dollar endowment is so senstitive to pressure from the big Donors. They don't really need the money, its just disguised bribery. But anyway, its humorous that a University that cares little for Academic Freedom and was so tolerant of anti-WHite and anti-Christians behavior and policies, is now self-destructing because Jews feel "Uncomfortable" at Harvard.

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of Leftists."

Hi. 1) ADL is just another leftist organization. They used to fight antisemitism until one of the Obama staffers became its president. Now it just goes after conservative organizations. This is a notable exception.
2) 20,000 people in Gaza died? Who says? Oh yeah. Hamas says. The ONLY source outside of Israel for how many Gazans died is arguably the most vicious terrorist organization in the world. And they were all children. Who were turning their lives around. Hoping to go to medical school.

Drives me nuts that anyone uses that figure.

You know what would stop the bombs in Gaza?
a) Release the hostages.
b) Surrender.

It's literally that simple. Imagine being Hamas and knowing that Israel would let all the aid in if you only let the hostages free. And you hate Muslims so much that you would rather that they starve. All you have to do is release the hostages and food and energy come in.

Keith said...

Bob Boyd said:

"Yes. There's no way STEM could possibly remain untouched.
The humanities are important. Unless you're content to yield the entire legal profession, judges, legislators, prosecutors cops and all to the dark side.
And the entire educational establishment. How long could STEM fields remain untouched after that? They might still be making achievements and discoveries in science and engineering, but in service of what ends? STEM exists to serve humanity and it will be used for that purpose for good or ill. "

STEM is going that way too. Don't you remember that white math is racist and we need to understand the way aborigines calculate? I think they started in fake science - science teaching - and they are spreading into real science.

Michael K said...

Blogger narciso said...

now there is an interesting class dynamic here, professor gay, is from a wealthy haitian family, roland fryer who pioneered ground breaking research comes from the school of hard knox, as does Carol Swain,


Fryer was sabotaged by the black mafia at Harvard. Gay is a member. People like Thomas Sowell could thrive at 1958 Harvard. Now it's all DEI for blacks.

Mikey NTH said...

They traded their honor for the applause of a fickle crowd. It's an old story.

The Skeptic said...

Minnesota Farm Guy (9:55AM) asserts that alumni vote for Harvard's "board." That depends on what you mean by "board." The real power at Harvard is the Harvard Corporation, which is secretive and self-perpetuating. If I recall correctly, alumni receive a ballot from time to time to vote for the "board of overseers" and the board of the "alumni association"--neither of which has any significant power. One of the benefits of the current dustup is that some sunlight is being shed on the governance of the university.

A few years ago, I seem to recall Dartmouth going through a similar governance dispute. TJ Rogers--a founder of Cypress Semiconductor--successfully ran as a petition candidate. I seem to recall the Board acting to make such a candidacy more difficult. Nothing irritates the cool kids like the great unwashed exercising political power. The solution is obvious--don't figure out why alumni are dissatisfied--rather change the rules to preserve the advantage of the cool kids to continue to ruin pretty much every institution in our country.

rcocean said...

"No, it's fucking delusional bullshit from a scumbag."

I'm not suprised you're angry. If you favor murdering 20,000 civilians, then you probably dont have any morals and/or might be mentally unbalanced.

And yeah, defending Genocide Joe and Israel's killing machine is a tough sell. Faking righteous anger when you know you're in the wrong, is probably the best marketing technique you can use.

Aggie said...



"Yes. There's no way STEM could possibly remain untouched"

I invite you to review the case of the pedestrian bridge at Florida International University which collapsed while under construction over a busy highway, killing a few people trapped in their cars below. The bridge's failure - spitting off chunks of concrete with periodic loud snapping sounds - took place over several days, with engineers failing utterly to correctly read the signals and take the right corrective action - it would seem, primarily due to inexperience.

"...A National Transportation Safety Board report into the collapse concluded that design calculation errors made by MCM’s consultant Figg Bridge Engineers were ultimately to blame. But failures by the independent design checker, client, contractor and on-site construction supervisor also contributed to the disaster."

...Investigators also found that Louis Berger failed to meet FDOT requirements for a peer reviewer to employ at least three registered professional engineers, each with a minimum of five years’ experience in designing complex concrete bridges.

....Post-collapse, Louis Berger confirmed to NTSB investigators that it analysed the design as one structure in its completed state. It only analysed the design for the completed structure and not for its various construction phases.

The NTSB’s latest report concludes that the collapse was a “catastrophe years in the making”.

The report adds: “The collapse of the FIU pedestrian bridge traced back long before the afternoon of the collapse, to FIGG’s bridge design errors […] In summary, because the design calculations were wrong, the bridge collapsed.

“Because nobody took action despite clear signs of structural distress, the collapse killed six people and injured ten.”

...."The Standing Committee on Structural Safety (SCOSS) recently published a report which concludes that the FIU bridge collapse highlights the unnecessary “risk” of allowing engineering decisions to be made by “non-engineers”.

SCOSS argues that due to the “increasingly fragmented nature of the industry” engineering decisions are often made by “non-engineers [who do] not understand the implications of their decisions”.

Josephbleau said...

Interesting that Obama has come out in support of Gay. He picked Beiden as VP, and Joe is a known plagiarist and money man. I think this kills the Idea that Michelle will run for president. Obama can force one embarrassment through, two would be tough, and Harvard would be even more damaged by the political backlash. Having Michelle be his surrogate would place him in the maelstrom of now instead of keeping him in the rosy lucrative glow of the past.

When Harvard undergrads are met with a harrumph instead of approval when they let their alma mater slip into the first 2 min of a conversation Harvard will need to do something. If Gay is not let go now she will be there for five painful years! Yale has become a private joke, Harvard must avoid becoming Bud Light. I want to be represented by an attorney mean and evil as a democrat apparatchik, not a patsy who stands around with stupid signs and screams.

Regarding STEM, I think that undergrad is becoming less rigorous due to lack of High School prep, but Grad school is becoming the new undergrad. Undergrad will be a replacement for a good High School, that they did not get. Grad school classes are still rigorous and many students fail, an MS or PhD will be the new requirement for serious work. They need to expand professional degrees like the Doctor of Engineering to let students do advanced work without the dissertation and teaching stuff.

Oso Negro said...

@ Bob Boyd. It's hard to learn if you are too busy professing.

Oso Negro said...

You all should have known that STEM would not be left unmolested when the Magical Negro trope of Hollywood was replaced by the Science Negro trope.

Original Mike said...

"If you favor murdering 20,000 civilians, then you probably dont have any morals and/or might be mentally unbalanced. "

True. Fortunately, that's not happening.

Bunkypotatohead said...

It's the 90% of them that give the other 10% a bad name.

Goldenpause said...

The ultimate self-inflicted wound born of hubris. The only thing missing is an Ancient Greek author to write the ending.

RMc said...

I'm so old, I remember when only white male college presidents were forced to resign.

Gary Rosen said...

"Faking righteous anger when you know you're in the wrong, is probably the best marketing technique you can use."

And who would know better than you?

Greg the Class Traitor said...

rcocean said...
"No, it's fucking delusional bullshit from a scumbag."

I'm not suprised you're angry. If you favor murdering 20,000 civilians, then you probably dont have any morals and/or might be mentally unbalanced.


1: The claim that Israel's doing that comes from Hamas, and is therefore a lie, and only a mental midget or a fellow liar would ever pretend to believe it
2: Civilians die in war. If you dont' want your civilians to die, don't start a war. Hamas, the elected government of Gaza, started this war, and teh people of Gaza went out and cheered in teh streets.

So I have absolutely no sympathy for them, and neither does any other sane individual. If they want to live, they can force their gov't, Hamas, to unconditionally surrender. Until then, they're entitled to just as much sympathy as were Germans in Nazi Germany during WWII, or Japanese in Imperial Japan.