My hope is that by stepping down I will deny demagogues the opportunity to further weaponize my presidency in their campaign to undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence, truth. As I depart, I must offer a few words of warning. The campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader. This was merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society....
Never did I imagine needing to defend decades-old and broadly respected research, but the past several weeks have laid waste to truth. Those who had relentlessly campaigned to oust me since the fall often trafficked in lies and ad hominem insults, not reasoned argument.... 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....
Having now seen how quickly the truth can become a casualty amid controversy, I’d urge a broader caution: At tense moments, every one of us must be more skeptical than ever of the loudest and most extreme voices in our culture, however well organized or well connected they might be.....
ADDED: Consider the phrase "relentlessly campaigned... since the fall." The congressional hearing that started the "campaign" against the 3 university presidents took place on December 5, 2023. That was just short of one month ago, but winter began on December 21, so early December, was, of course, part of "the fall." The "campaign" was not long at all. It was swift and to the point.
Another way to make the "campaign" seem bigger than it was is to portray it as a component of something larger. It's "a single skirmish in a broader war." To believe that, you have to accept that Gay's plagiarism is of a piece with the lofty ideals that make a university great — notably, truth. Her attackers "laid waste to truth." Truth "quickly... bec[a]me a casualty." How is the exposure of plagiarism a war against truth?!
AND: The exposure of Gay's plagiarism could be experienced as part of a war against truth if it is seen as portraying Gay as undeserving of her high position and part of a general effort to destroy confidence in affirmative action. That's why she was "an ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety about the generational and demographic changes unfolding on American campuses." This view involves believing — holding it to be true — that changes that have occurred through the practice of affirmative action have been legal, moral, and good.
ALSO: My post title is mine. Gay didn't write of unraveling pillars. She — or her ghostwriter — wrote of unraveling faith in pillars.
It's a mixed metaphor to speak of unraveling pillars. Pillars are composed of solid material, like stone or concrete, that supports the weight of a building, or they are decorative elements that look as though they could support a heavy weight.
Destroying pillars entails strenuous effort....
If you want to destroy my sweater/Hold this thread as I walk away/Watch me unravel I'll soon be naked...
Posts
112 comments:
"The campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader."
Hopefully this is true. Time will tell whether Christopher Rufo can keep this freight train running down the tracks. It's nice to see the political opposition on the defensive.
I do need to give her credit for providing one of the best descriptions of DEI:
"This was merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society...."
Also see - Self awareness, lack of
With revelation of systemic diversity (i.e. color judgements, class bigotry), fraud, corruption, and cover-up, every administrator, professor, faculty, and student in the wake of woke at Harvard, cannot be trusted or considered to be viable.
You’re a sly one Ann Althouse. Nice cut.
just to be clear.. the person continues to receive OVER $900,000 a year.
The left is the party of the rich.
She’s apparently too dumb to realize the whole essay is, ironically, proof that her hiring was a result of lowered standards to satisfy the DEI gods. If I were a black scholar, I’d feel insulted by her unintended implication that black scholarship should be beyond criticism.
D. Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky . . . shared an especially prescient email he had sent to a student not long ago. It read: “Please understand that you cannot use whole sentences from people . . . unless you want to get in trouble for academic dishonesty . . . Later on in your career, especially if you’re successful, it could cause a scandal, of the sort that periodically hits public scholars.”
“Never did I imagine needing to defend decades-old and broadly respected research, but the past several weeks have laid waste to truth.”
Sad that Ms. Gay doesn’t seem to understand what just happened. And to display that ignorance in the NYT - how embarrassing.
Ann:
That was so clever, can I steal it?
Never did I imagine needing to defend decades-old and broadly respected research, but the past several weeks have laid waste to truth.
Neither did the people who actually did that research.
Consider the phrase "relentlessly campaigned... since the fall." The congressional hearing that started the "campaign" against the 3 university presidents took place on December 5, 2023. That was just short of one month ago, but winter began on December 21, so early December, was, of course, part of "the fall." The "campaign" was not long at all. It was swift and to the point.
Which campaign? The one against antisemitism or DEI? The one started on December 5, 2023 was against antisemitism. The one against DEI has been going on for much longer. And these yokels were all celebrating a defeat for DEI after Gay quit - NOT antisemitism. So you're confused.
Another way to make the "campaign" seem bigger than it was is to portray it as a component of something larger. It's "a single skirmish in a broader war." To believe that, you have to accept that Gay's plagiarism is of a piece with the lofty ideals that make a university great — notably, truth. Her attackers "laid waste to truth." Truth "quickly... bec[a]me a casualty." How is the exposure of plagiarism a war against truth?!
You're using 'plagiarism' as a weapon. I just heard Norman Finkelstein's great take on the: since, we know, Alan Dershowitz has been caught plagiarizing billions of times, let's hold the presidents of other colleges to the same level of scrutiny as Gay, chosen at random even, and see how well they do. Norman says they would all fail as well, because the instances cited for Gay are trivial. Without the threat of Jewish billionaires pulling their money, upset over the fact students don't share their desire to kill Palestinian kids, she'd still be employed. Also, a warning on academic freedom, a concept started after the robber barons of old tried this shit:
If Jewish billionaires can get rid of presidents, they can get rid of faulty. If they can get rid of faculty, they can get rid of courses. If they can get rid of courses, you don't have a school.
How's that for a bigger issue?
The exposure of Gay's plagiarism could be experienced as part of a war against truth if it is seen as portraying Gay as undeserving of her high position and part of a general effort to destroy confidence in affirmative action. That's why she was "an ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety about the generational and demographic changes unfolding on American campuses." This view involves believing — holding it to be true — that changes that have occurred through the practice of affirmative action have been legal, moral, and good.
Whatever. The right hasn't lost my allegiance because what the left does is so grand, but because what the right does - like killing babies - is even more repulsive.
My hope is that by stepping down I will deny demagogues the opportunity to further weaponize my presidency in their campaign to undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence, truth. As I depart,
If she believed any of that, she wouldn’t have written this in the NYT. She would just depart.
"I'm reading this prose and wondering who writes like this"
Wonder no more. Same type of person who speaks for Old Joe.
When you have the Great Divider Obama and his twin Al Sharpton on your side, you think you are above everybody else.
I’d rather look at Hedy Lamar than Claudine Gay.
If that be racism, make the most of it.
“The congressional hearing that started the "campaign" against the 3 university presidents took place on December 5, 2023.”
The campaign to oust Claudine Gay started on October 9. The plagiarism allegation was first made to the university by the New York Post on October 24.
Gay is accused of falsifying data — a charge that forced the resignation of Stanford’s President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, even though he, himself was not directly involved in the data manipulation. So when she writes about “truth” in the New York Times one needs to ask is it ground truth, as reflected in the raw, collected data? Or is it “her truth,” made up bullshit to fit her theories?
So show us the raw data. All the data. Tell us how you analyzed it. Or we should draw our own conclusions about the truthfulness of your “scholarship.”
Take Gay at face value: Dumb as a box of rocks, prone to using flowery prose, and now reinforcing every negative stereotype about the massive damage caused by DEI/diversity hires out of their depth.
In my experience this kind of dated, ego-driven, flowery prose is pretty common among pro-government and pro-establishment careerists who've spent their entire professional lives within any given system. They b-e-l-i-e-v-e the propaganda and hubris. They love it in a naïve fashion, just like teenage girls always love the latest boy band. Gay-type DEI careerists were always told they are good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like them.
This isn't a left-vs-right thing, some of the weirdest grand rhetoric comes from those raised in traditional religions and then asked to give a general speech.
Fatal naivete, in the words of Cheap Trick:
Before we married, Mommy served
In the WACS in the Philippines”
Now, I had heard the WACs recruited
Old maids for the war
But mommy isn't one of those
I've known her all these years
https://genius.com/Cheap-trick-surrender-lyrics
I wondered how much Professors at Harvard make in light of gay's reported $900m.
I found this
https://www.univstats.com/salary/harvard-university/faculty/#google_vignette
It looks like the typical full time non-plagiarizing professor, for 12 months, makes about 1/3 of Gay's salary $297m.
The interesting thing is the disparity between me and women at all faculty levels.
For the top rank above, men average $41m ($311 vs $270) more than women. About 15% more.
By eyeball, other ranks look similar.
For all Harvard virtue signaling, they seem like sexist bigots pay wise.
John Henry
I like Megan McArdle's idea: a computer should be able to run a mountain of academic prose through a plagiarism checker in a very short time. Supposedly if you google a 7-word phrase you wrote, you get one hit--from your piece.
The solution obviously is to cut male salaries
John Henry
I've always really liked that Weezer song.
To answer your question "Who writes like this?" I will say that someone who lives within a bubble, surrounded by people who don't challenge.
As I depart, I must offer a few words of warning.
Is she departing?
I thought she was just moving down the hall to another office.
Is this another lie?
John Henry
"Destroying pillars entails strenuous effort...."
...Or deceptively weak pillars made to look stronger than they actually are.
Bravo Ms. Gay. I think it's beautifully written. She's actually describing herself and her Baby Boomer intelligentsia fellow travelers that established the modern all knowing all powerful paternalistic college administrative state by waging "a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society"
Every single sentence she wrote can be made into a coherent and logical argument for everything wrong with higher education, especially the expense, the political correctness and the expansion of non-judicial punishment for crimes ranging from rape to exercising ones right to free expression.
Here, she utterly condemns woke cancel culture:
"Having now seen how quickly the truth can become a casualty amid controversy, I’d urge a broader caution: At tense moments, every one of us must be more skeptical than ever of the loudest and most extreme voices in our culture, however well organized or well connected they might be....."
I wonder how many academics are peeing their pants right now at the realization that AI will scrape all dissertations, essays and research papers then compare for acts of plagiarism.
We're about to watch the authority of the academy unravel
In the end, Harvard and the America beyond Harvard Square were not worthy of her leadership and grand vision. She'll retreat to her bunker and contemplate further on the harm that the character flaws of America and the cowardice of Harvard has caused her. She'll have the meager comforts of a small pension and perhaps a book advance to get her through the coming years, but the shame of America and Harvard is irreparable....Perhaps the upcoming Disney movie starring Halle Berry will be able to fully amplify her struggle against the dark forces of America. Joan of Arc, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Park, and now Claudine Gay. She's part of the heavens, and we were blessed to see her meteor cross our skies.
She actually is stupid. The campaign was just publicly pointing it out. For some reason it wasn't permitted to say it before. Perhaps she picked on the wrong victim group this time.
Yes pogrom deniar crack, why couldnt harvard find a person of inpeccable academic rigor
Playing the race card while supporting Hamas is just about as low as a plagiarizing scoundrel can go.
The Crack Emcee wrote:
“ I just heard Norman Finkelstein's great take on the: since, we know, Alan Dershowitz has been caught plagiarizing billions of times, let's hold the presidents of other colleges to the same level of scrutiny as Gay,”
1. When was Dershowitz a college president?
2. “caught plagiarizing billions of times” From what I’ve read, Finkelstein has accused Dershowitz of lifting quotes from another book and citing them in his own book. Joan Peters cited passages from other sources. Dershowitz cited those same sources but did not acknowledge that he found the quotes in her book but referenced the original work.
“Finkelstein argues that even though Dershowitz attributes those passages to their original sources, he should not have relied so heavily on Peters’ work.”
“According to Harvard’s “Writing with Sources” manual, plagiarism “is passing off a source’s information, ideas, or words as your own by omitting to cite them; an act of lying, cheating, and stealing.” The manual suggests that a passage found quoted in another scholar’s work should be cited as “‘quoted in’ that scholar.” But it does not explicitly state how to source such a passage when one has returned to the original source to check the citation, as Dershowitz says he did.”
Here’s my source material: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2003/9/29/dershowitz-accused-of-plagiarism-a-depaul/
This is the only accusation of plagiarism against Dershowitz according to Wikipedia.
Who writes like this? Extreme narcissists. She writes like her mentor Obama. This reads like her resignation letter, chock full of sentences about “I me mine my” in various forms. This might be a lazy habit that was only improved by generous amounts of unattributed quoted text.
I'm reading this prose and wondering who writes like this
It very much reminds me of Obama's style. Especially this line:
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....
Scoundrel defends scoundrel. LOL!
America needs Harvard like a fish needs a bicycle.
“but I'm reading this prose and wondering who writes like this:”
That’s exactly how I wrote in Jr High. Right after I discovered what a thesaurus was.
Obviously her preferred pronouns are very personal.
"I'm reading this prose and wondering who writes like this"
Well, there's Jeannie Suk Gerson. (Thst's a name and not a command.)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/25/university-presidents-under-fire
Its a Harvard thing.
Eva Marie said...
The Crack Emcee wrote:
“ I just heard Norman Finkelstein's great take on the: since, we know, Alan Dershowitz has been caught plagiarizing billions of times, let's hold the presidents of other colleges to the same level of scrutiny as Gay,”
1. When was Dershowitz a college president?
His point is that plagiarism is common in academia. As many have acknowledged here, they don't do their research, etc. And his test, of holding the presidents of other colleges to the same level of scrutiny as Gay, is still brilliant: let's see if this is a witch hunt or not.
Is she departing?
I thought she was just moving down the hall to another office.
I’m starting to think the errors are intended to avoid more plagiarism accusations by writing things no one else would. Sort of like that AP story yesterday that described her being scalped in the way white supremacists used to scalp Native Americans. Nobody else would have written such nonsense.
Unravelling Pillars? How about Unrolling the Scrolls? Steamrolling the Trolls? Unearthing the Moles? Drycleaning the Stoles? Filling the Holes? Playing the Roles? Spending the Doles?
Remember when your school photoshopped black students into their crowd football scenes to show Wisconsin's diversity...
Maybe you should hush now on criticizing the quality of the black woman's written resignation letter?
Stones and glass houses and all, pretty white professor...
"questioning whether the woman caught plagiarizing wrote the column that appears under her name"
Hmm. So with the whole kerfuffle swirling around her, the author of 11 articles in 26 years has time to sit down and bang out number 12 in a day or so, written in this oddly disembodied and unresponsive form of progspeak?
Of course, her playing of the race/victim card only confirms the basis criticism of her and Harvard--that she was chosen as a symbol, that she was unqualified, and that with regard to the actual charges against her she's got nothing.
@Michael at 7:43
These are exactly my thoughts. Do not build your castle on the sand. In the fullness of time, you will be found out.
Yet Jaurès was the Samson who upheld the pillars of the Bloc.
...Samson's way with pillars was not to uphold them.
-Fowler, Spoilt Metaphor, 2nd edition
The poor victim is still making 900,000.00/year at Harvard.
Is she paying taxes on that? or is there a nice loophole for her there, too?
As I watch Victor Mature destroying the Temple of Dagon, I will ask as Dagon falls -- is that meant to be a metaphor of DEI crumbling?
Who, then, is playing Victor Mature? Elise Stefanik? Aaron Sibarium?
Nice catch Bob Boyd. The style sounded like Obama but that snippet you excerpted is a great example, and might be a clue to who helped her write this article. She's the object of the first clause and the subject of the next one and that's a short sample , not even a complete sentence you quoted.
Yes, it would be beneath you to make an obvious joke. Leave that to me.
I'm a little perplexed on how to fight University Liberalism and corrupt DEI. Small victories are fun. Harvard's fake prestige has been exposed. That's good. Watching these witches embarrass themselves in front of the world was fun. UW La Crosse Joe Gow is the most fun.
Over the course of time, Universities lowering standards for DEI will eventually destroy themselves. It's like the genetic effects of inbreeding. It's going to produce screwed up offspring. It already has.
On the flip side are the effects on American society and commerce. Can we afford the risk? Also, the damage done to millenials, generation z and alpha are going to be disasterous.
Whatever is the best strategy, DEI cultures at Universities will eventually implode. It's just not going to be worth the money. How long this will take I don't know. But it seems unsustainable on its own.
Lexington Green said...
I’d rather look at Hedy Lamar than Claudine Gay.
I'd rather look at Hedley Lamar than Claudine Gay. . . . .
Since Blinken's stepfather was a close confidant of Ghizlaine Maxwell's father, a Mossad agent, and guess what, Blinken's stepfather was the last person to speak to Maxwell's father before he "fell off a yacht" and died. So I am pretty sure that Biden knew all about the fact that Epstein's operation was an Israeli honey trap, and steered well clear of it.
And for all of the efforts of Epstein to ensnare Trump in this Mossad badger game, the best he could do was horn his way into a photo or two before he was banned from Mar a Lago. But it's enough for Rich to insinuate things that are in no way supported by the evidence!
It's also funny that the brother of "Pedo Pete" as Hunter calls his father, James, who we have already seen has benefited hugely from Joe's political power, owns land on a small island not very far from Epstein's little pedo paradise. But, as I said, given Biden's close connection with Blinken, who was himself connected with Maxwell and the Mossad, I doubt that Joe would go anywhere near this pedo island, knowing it for what it was.
What is also funny is that names remain redacted from the disclosure. Who is in power to redact these names? I can tell you it is not Donald Trump or anybody remotely loyal to him, as they have been purged thoroughly from positions of power.
I learned something new here. December is fall not winter.
I’d rather look at Hedy Lamar than Claudine Gay.
That's HEDLEY!
Victor Mature is now Victor Manure in DEI circles…
Some plagiarists are more equal than others. The media pundits defended Gay, saying she merely "failed to properly cite her sources." It is as if they said it wasn't a car jacking, the car was merely driven away without permission of the owner.
Any excuse to tag a Weezer song, is a good excuse!
I've been giving further thought to the inevitable book that she will write about her ordeal. I'm sure that it will be a big best seller. It will have a place in every college library in America, and it will be assigned only a little less frequently than Howard Zinn's great work. I would like to suggest, however, that she go in a different direction. I'm thinking graphic novel. Perhaps she could team with some of the staff at Marvel Comics to bring some flash and action to her struggles. "Claudine Gray and the Unraveled Temple of Doom". How's that for a title? The archvillain is some character modeled after Hannibal Lecter and Bill Ackman, and the panels depict her brave struggle to keep Harvard from becoming a center for Nazi scientists and the dissemination of misinformation about DEI. I'm having trouble framing plagiarism as a super power, but that's why the people at Marvel make the big bucks....Anyway, the graphic novel route would be in keeping with her record as a trail breaking pioneer and would more likely be read by her true fans. If I be permitted one small criticism, I don't think the prose in the NYT piece is as punchy as the subject demands.
“The pillars” are cracking and crumbling, largely due to the efforts of Gay and her cohort. The “campaign” is an effort to repair and restore them.
Methinks the lady doth craft her writing in lofty terms and winding pathways in order to assert intellectual verisimilitude: as though projecting untruths on the canvas of the pillars of modern progress.
@ Mike (MJB Wolf)
And so grandiose. The self-importance and the pompous tone...Obama was always going on like that.
Has anyone done a check to see if her response to the forced resignation is original work?
Where is MLK when we need him. He preached about racial harmony based on Christianity.
This DIVERSITY GAULEITER wants to see replacement of those Northern European ancestry. That means destroying Harvard.
I learned something new here. December is fall not winter.
Astronomically. Not Meteorologically.
Certainly nobody talks like that. The writing is pure corporate/academic nonsense, a handful of woke chosen from the scrabble bag. Not an Apologia by any means. Just another screed blaming whitey. Quite possible she had help crafting this embarrassing letter just as she had help in her replies to Congress. The wrong help. The weesely lawyerly help.
The Crack Emcee wrote:
“His point is that plagiarism is common in academia. As many have acknowledged here, they don't do their research, etc. And his test, of holding the presidents of other colleges to the same level of scrutiny as Gay, is still brilliant: let's see if this is a witch hunt or not."
I've said before elsewhere that checks on previous work should be part of the hiring process. Are these candidates all what they said they are?
As far as it being a witch hunt, it's not. It's whack a mole. Gay stuck her head up and put her foot in her mouth by repeated phrases that had nothing in substance and everything in avoidance. The questioning was not about college kids not wanting Pali kids not dying. It was about the "From the river to the sea..." phrase. I would think you would find it a genocidal call but Jews are billionaires so that's cool or something.
Crack: "Whatever. The right hasn't lost my allegiance because what the left does is so grand, but because what the right does - like killing babies - is even more repulsive."
What we have here is a man who is truly confused and whose posturing exemplifies moral relativism.
The Crack Emcee wrote:
“His point is that plagiarism is common in academia. As many have acknowledged here, they don't do their research, etc. And his test, of holding the presidents of other colleges to the same level of scrutiny as Gay, is still brilliant: let's see if this is a witch hunt or not."
I've said before elsewhere that checks on previous work should be part of the hiring process. Are these candidates all what they said they are?
As far as it being a witch hunt, it's not. It's whack a mole. Gay stuck her head up and put her foot in her mouth by repeated phrases that had nothing in substance and everything in avoidance. The questioning was not about college kids not wanting Pali kids not dying. It was about the "From the river to the sea..." phrase. I would think you would find it a genocidal call but Jews are billionaires so that's cool or something.
I assume Gay was forced to resign. And plagiarism is only the excuse both parties are hiding behind.
I imagine that everything that she has written previously is as bad and poorly reasoned as this. To slog through this, with an eye out for plagiarism would be a near impossible feat. Her work, so reliant on buzzwords and the circle-jerk mentality of the academy, was likely never read before because the conclusions are so obvious from the beginning, there is no need to read the piece at all. All that the grievance studies are, are rationalizations for doing the wrong thing. We are lucky that she published so little.
"Where is MLK when we need him. He preached about racial harmony based on Christianity."
After "Dr." King plagiarized his dissertation.
"Never did I imagine needing to defend decades-old and broadly respected research ...".
Let's just be clear, that even if every word were her own, and every conclusion were backed by solid reasoning, nothing this stupid cow ever wrote would have the least value. She's a fucking social science major. She got a PhD from Stanford for being a Negro. She hasn't got the brains to power a robot vacuum cleaner.
Althouse writes, "How is the exposure of plagiarism a war against truth?"
There is a fashionable figure of speech that so effortlessly rolls off the tongue nowadays that we tend to ignore its implications, my truth rather than the truth.
The truth is very hard to come by, whereas owned truth is easy. Just make any claim and attach your personal pronoun to it, and, voilá!, you own an evidence-free truth that no one who dreads the racist label can refute. For example, when Adele James sought to defend the execrable Queen Cleopatra from the outrage of the Egyptian government (not to mention historians and archeologists) she said this, "I remember my grandmother saying to me, don't care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was black." In other words, the testimony of the ancients, the research of modern scholars, the coins, the sculpture -- all amount to nothing compared to the acting career of Adele James.
Not only is owned truth unassailable, contradiction is impossible. Posit this: Althouse says the noonday sky is orange, that's her owned truth. However, Quaestor's truth holds the sky to be purple. A contradiction? Not at all. Quaestor's intersectional spreadsheet is virtually empty. Male, white, heterosexual, Protestant, Anglo-Norman lineage... no help there. Whereas Althouse has at least one decisive checkmark, female. Ipso facto, orange. In the rare case of intersectional quotient equality, apparently contradictory owned truths are simultaneously true and false, like Erwin Schördinger's kitty.
Claudine Gay's corpus operis contains no plagiarism because she's black, female, and lesbian. QED.
Howard thinks it beautifully written. Just as he loved the pretty talk of President Obama.
Anthony writes, "I'd rather look at Hedley Lamar than Claudine Gay..."
Boris, pencil this one in for Monday.
Interesting. Gay claims that her research papers are "decades old and broadly respected".
Well maybe. There's an interesting letter to the editor in today's WSJ. It's written by an emeritus professor who claims to have read six of her papers. Gay gets no respect from him. He says the papers would hardly support a claim for tenure.
Original thinking--and original papers--are few. Since that's the case, Gay would argue that there should be no shame in "borrowing" from the folks capable of original thought. And indeed it's done all the time in the world--and that's okay as long as you remember to give proper credit to the originator of the thoughts and ideas you "borrowed". Ms. Gay forgot to do that.
Somewhere in the right vs. left, black vs. white stuff the original point was lost.
The president of the university with the lowest ranking in the nation for promoting free speech condones pro-terrorist, antisemitic, demonstrations on campus in the name of free speech.
While it is probable that her troubling testimony before Congress reflects her personal biases, the overriding issue should have been her, and the university's hypocrisy and double standard.
Race is only an issue because Gay and the mediaswine made it an issue. The president of Penn is white and gone. Gay's DEI, antisemitism and plagiarism are aggravating factors, but the important issue ought to have been her hostility or indifference toward free speech and thinking. If that is not clear her departure is not any kind of "victory."
Do those ideas include Harvard's ties to slavery?
Maybe hiring Gay was a way to pay reparations.
Why else would they have hired such a mediocre person?
But $900k/yr. isn't the worst thing on earth...
50 Ways to Depart Harvard:
We don’t need mean Claudine
So just flee the scene
They ain’t buying the faith
In Pillars of Naïfs
Just pass through the Yard tall
And don’t mind the spall
You got bored by the Board
Drop the pen and sword
Erase the first exit
Racist and sexist
No more copy and paste
Just scurry in haste
hombre said...
"What we have here is a man who is truly confused and whose posturing exemplifies moral relativism."
When the Zionists lose their genocide trial in the International Court of Justice on the 11th, I'll expect you to be a man and take that back. I'll also expect you to acknowledge you were a cheerleader for mass murder. AND that you were willing to slander good people to fulfill whatever sick need you have.
I'm saving this link, so do expect to see your words again.
Crack. You flatter yourself. You aren’t a good person. You’ve revealed yourself here quite clearly.
"I'm having trouble framing plagiarism as a super power, but that's why the people at Marvel make the big bucks...."
In Mystery Men, The Spleen's super power is farting so I'm sure there's got to be a way plagiarism could be leveraged.
yes South Africa, where kill the boer, is an imperative,
as much as I understood Mandelas reasoning, I thought this would lead to a bad end, Zuma was perhaps the most blatant scoundrel, Ramaphosa, a more respectable one,
Old and slow said...
"Crack. You flatter yourself. You aren’t a good person. You’ve revealed yourself here quite clearly."
You're the person who said you don't care about the truth, you just want to kill.
their campaign to undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence, truth.
As usual, the Leftie projects. DEI is ALL apt destroying excellence, openness, independence, truth, and replacing them with mediocrity, destruction of unbelievers, mob rule, and lies
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/embattled-harvard-president-claudine-gay-wouldn-t-share-research-when-academics-questioned-data-in-2001-stanford-paper/ar-AA1m44yu
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/claudine-gay-made-a-career-of-attacking-black-scholars-dont-defend-her-for-being-black-opinion/ar-AA1m74dl
Economics Professor Roland G. Fryer, Jr. was next in the sights of Dean Gay. Fryer was a top Black professor at Harvard. After having overcome all sorts of hardship and childhood deprivation, Professor Fryer joined the faculty at Harvard to become the second-youngest professor ever to be awarded tenure at Harvard, and went on to blaze a trail of distinction, including winning the MacArthur Fellowship and the John Bates Clark Medal.
Yet when Fryer undertook research into the killings of unarmed Black men in Houston, Fryer's research found no racial disparities. He made the mistake of undercutting the racial narrative that the Left has adopted, and as a result, Gay did her best to remove all of his academic privileges, coordinating a witch hunt against him. Fryer survived Gay's crusade of discharge but Fryer's lab was shut down, his reputation tarnished.
There is no "academic freedom" left for us to "destroy". And that is entirely the fault of the Left
Some are saying professor Gay was selected because of the color of her skin. (Evidence follows.)
The left, predictably cry, "RACISM!!!!" (Evidence absent, except the fact she is black is sufficient proof to some.)
Then Marc Lamont Hill weighs in.... we MUST replace Gay with another black woman.
A slight sense of inconsistency is sounding an alarm in my head.
Nice apophasis, Professor.
May she skulk into the slough of mediocrity and never be heard from again, like Sam Brinton.
mishu said...
"Are these candidates all what they said they are?"
I like Finkelstein's idea: check everybody, the hired and new candidates. If Claudine Gay is as average as Finkelstein suggests, return her to her position and admit this was a witch hunt.
"As far as it being a witch hunt, it's not."
At this point, that's what it's evolved into, from an attack on campus speech. The cheers for DEI taking a hit proves it.
"It's whack a mole. Gay stuck her head up and put her foot in her mouth by repeated phrases that had nothing in substance and everything in avoidance."
That much is true.
"The questioning was not about college kids not wanting Pali kids not dying. It was about the "From the river to the sea..." phrase."
Same thing. I don't see "From the river to the sea..." as anything but a political slogan, no matter what Elise Stefanik says. The Likud Party's used it. Weaponizing it against Palestinians and their supporters is just more justification to bomb those people.
"I would think you would find it a genocidal call but Jews are billionaires so that's cool or something."
Nope. It's too vague. So vague both sides use it. A genocidal call is Ben Shapiro saying "you must allow Israel to transfer the Palestinians and the Israeli-Arabs from Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Israel proper. It's an ugly solution, but it is the only solution...The Israelis...are afraid that if they expel the Arabs, they will be called Nazis."
We call that Ben Shapiro's Final Solution. Do you get it? "From the river to the sea..." implies something. And your mind can make-up the rest. But a genocidal call is unmistakable. The Israeli Minister of Heritage saying "Anyone who carries a Palestinian flag should not be allowed to live" and a "nuclear bomb should be dropped on Gaza" are clear examples of genocidal speech that's been used out there.
I don't know where you got the idea I would think so cynically that I would want to kill Jewish billionaires. I'm the guy calling to end the war in this sea of Zionist supporters who like killing kids and have a hundred justifications for doing so - all of them bogus.
Just like this Claudine Gay bullshit.
Mason G writes, "In Mystery Men, The Spleen's superpower is farting so I'm sure there's got to be a way plagiarism could be leveraged."
(harrumph) Mystery Men? A pale simulacrum of the true and original satiric parody of all things pulpish and superpowered, THE TICK! (the 1994 animated series, please). Ben Edlund could contrive a unique superpower for arch-villainess Gayborg in a mere trice... Well, a few trices. He's a busy man, for goodness sake.
Crack: "When the Zionists lose their genocide trial in the International Court of Justice on the 11th, I'll expect you to be a man and take that back."
I am a man, not a sheep who bleats to the tune of the Islamists and the Jew hating left. My thinking is not dependent upon the conclusions of the usual antisemites in the international community. No other country has ever been expected to show restraint in the face of the monstrous terrorism displayed by Hamas.
No terrorist event has ever engendered the mass stupidity and insensitivity as has the Hamas attack of October 7th - including yours.
“The right hasn't lost my allegiance because what the left does is so grand, but because what the right does - like killing babies - is even more repulsive."
To lose the support of a narcissistic scoundrel like this fellow is the best news I’ve read all week.
Joe Smith
Why would gay be owed reparations?
Her parents emigrated here fro Haiti. She may have 200 year old French slavery in her family. No American slavery.
She's never even renounced her Haitian citizenship.
Her parents seem to have been very well off sending her to fancy boarding schools.
Any money available to her for reparations should go to Crack instead.
John Henry
Perhaps someone could begin a project to start running all writing by fascist/progressive (birm) administrators through plagiarism detectors.
Then 1) publish the results and 2)submit the results to the appropriate office at their school.
John Henry
"Any money available to her for reparations should go to Crack instead."
San Francisco's Office of Reparations $2M budget was recently cut. Those health care expenses for illegal aliens aren't going to pay themselves, you know.
hombre said...
"I am a man, not a sheep who bleats to the tune of the Islamists and the Jew hating left."
The Israeli Ambassador to the UK stuck her foot in her mouth, again, and openly called for a Palestinian genocide, again, the poor thing. I don't know what Islamists and the Jew hating left have to do with recognizing that. It sounds like you're letting them blind you, morally.
"My thinking is not dependent upon the conclusions of the usual antisemites in the international community."
Ahh. How convenient. To exclude yourself from the only body capable of righting wrongs - a body which we started - while throwing accusations around of a validity, I gather, only you can be the judge of. Hitler ain't around for comment but would approve.
"No other country has ever been expected to show restraint in the face of the monstrous terrorism displayed by Hamas."
If it's so monstrous why do Israel and the US have to lie about it? The non-existent 40 decapitated babies? The non-existent widespread rape victims? Don't you see these are fibs made-up to justify an illegal massacre?
"No terrorist event has ever engendered the mass stupidity and insensitivity as has the Hamas attack of October 7th - including yours."
Translation: No action of Palestinian self-defense has ever sent so many people to their History books, to discover "a land without a people for a people without a land" was NOT a true statement, but the first of many lies the Zionists are spinning, to this very day, to justify their killing. Hamas is not a nuclear power - Israel is. Hamas is not one of the world's top manufacturers and sellers of high tech weapons and spy wear - Israel is. Hamas is not the major power in the region - Israel is. Hamas has no army - Israel does. Hamas doesn't have the backing of the world's superpower - Israel does. Hamas isn't occupying Israel - Israel is occupying Gaza. Hamas didn't sell weapons to the racist apartheid era South Africa - Israel did. Hamas can't wipe Israel off the map - Israel has defeated ALL of its neighbors in war. I could go on, but I hope you will see how silly you sound, pretending it's stupid to see through obvious Zionist propaganda and know who the aggressor's been here. As far as I can tell, Zionists started bombing Palestine in 1946, and never stopped. No one's proved that wrong. How you can be insensitive to that fact is astounding.
Anyway, if you're not beholden to anyone's judgement but your own, then there's been no point in me even writing back to you.
I won't make that mistake again.
@Darkisland
Yes, I know all of this...just having fun.
My slavery reference was about Harvard's ties to the slave trade.
Feeble humor...I do my best...
Another salvo in plagiarism war. Outspoken Harvard billionaire alum/donor Bill Ackman has also threatened to go after the third hapless University President, of MIT. He married a then MIT phd and prof. Business Insider magazine did computer analysis of her writings and published evidence of plagiarism. She has apologized and promised corrections.
Next.
This is the official ICJ list of pending cases. The trial Crack is always ranting about doesn't appear, at least I can't see it.
I think Crack is setting himself up for yet another bout of suicidal depression.
Crack Emcee (3:47pm):
"If it's so monstrous why do Israel and the US have to lie about it? The non-existent 40 decapitated babies? The non-existent widespread rape victims? Don't you see these are fibs made-up to justify an illegal massacre?"
Israel did not say that 40 babies were decapitated. They said that 40 babies were murdered, and a few of them decapitated. That appears to be entirely true, and he is obfuscating the point by accusing them of something they did not say. No doubt some foolish people misread the original report, combined the horrific number with the horrific method of murder, and tweeted about 40 decapitated babies, but so what? That's on them, not Israel.
As for the supposedly "non-existent widespread rape victims", Crack Emcee's language on Tuesday's Sunrise post (11:02PM) demonstrates that he knows he's lying:
"Hamas' French captive flatters herself: 'His wife was outside the room with the children,...That was the only reason he didn't rape me.'
Being a skinny waif, with those huge, ugly, stupid bee-stung lips might have had something to do with it, too. Jesus, these people are incredible. Their imaginations run wild with sexual fantasies starring themselves."
So Crack Emcee thinks this particular captive wasn't raped because he finds her unattractive, and assumes Hamas shares his taste in women. The clear implication is that he thinks the plumper, thinner-lipped, more attractive captives were in fact raped in captivity, and that doesn't seem to bother him at all. That would explain why just about all of the older women hostages were exchanged, but (form what I've heard) Hamas is still holding dozens of teenage girls and under-30 women, as well as lots of men and boys.
It's also not just incredibly tasteless, but stupid, to call someone a "skinny waif" who has just been released from ~7 weeks as a prisoner given (she says, and she would know) very little food. I'm sure she was quite a bit less skinny when first captured. And the implication in the last sentence that she really wanted to be raped is the sort of thing only a disgusting sociopath and utter asshole could possibly write.
Final question for female commenters:
If you were being held captive by a man and wife for seven weeks, do you think you could tell from the man's actions and expressions whether he was thinking of raping you? Would this be visible in the faces of some, many, most, all men in such a position, thinking such thoughts? And do you think you could tell from the wife's actions and expressions whether she thought her husband was thinking of raping you? I suspect the French captive, who was actually there, could tell quite a bit about what the man and his wife were thinking. Of course, I wasn't there, but neither was Crack Emcee.
"Another salvo in plagiarism war. Outspoken Harvard billionaire alum/donor Bill Ackman has also threatened to go after the third hapless University President, of MIT. He married a then MIT phd and prof. Business Insider magazine did computer analysis of her writings and published evidence of plagiarism. She has apologized and promised corrections.
Next."
If someone's wife plagiarized, that is on them, are you guilty of an academic crime because your wife did something? What your gleeful comment does is make donors hate academia, because they are not going to give to places that will go after them. So you win, and inherit the ashes.
Quaestor said...
"This is the official ICJ list of pending cases. The trial Crack is always ranting about doesn't appear, at least I can't see it."
REUTERS: ICJ slates hearings in Gaza genocide case for Jan. 11-12
Can you see it now?
Dr Weevil said...
"Israel did not say that 40 babies were decapitated. They said that 40 babies were murdered, and a few of them decapitated."
‘40 beheaded babies’ : How media amplified an unconfirmed story
Dr Weevil said...
"Crack Emcee thinks this particular captive wasn't raped because he finds her unattractive, and assumes Hamas shares his taste in women."
Bullshit. You're taking one off-the-cuff comment, assuming that's all I know or meant, and running with it. I don't think like you. Stand down. You do not and cannot speak for me. You can not interpret my feelings or claim to know what I think.
My post answering Quaestor @ 6:07 PM never showed up.
Oochie walla walla jochie bang-bang: Bill Ackman’s wife is accused of plagiarizing part of her dissertation
Apropos of very little, I move that we start calling “ad hominem” attacks against women “ad feminam.”
(And yes, I know the difference between vir and homo . I’m just goofing around.)
I did a previous post announcing Bill Ackman’s wife is accused of plagiarizing part of her dissertation that never showed up.
Stupid Crack Emcee hasn't figured out that I don't follow his links, because when I did in the past I always regretted it.
In this case, his description does not in any way address my objection. Of course, a man who can't even apologize for calling a victim of terrorism too ugly to rape is too danbed stupid to argue with. In this case, as in others, I'm not addressing him, but others who may be tempted to think he's not an evil-minded racist moron.
Readering said...
Another salvo in plagiarism war. Outspoken Harvard billionaire alum/donor Bill Ackman has also threatened to go after the third hapless University President, of MIT.
Jesus Christ. Exactly why is the "University President of MIT" "hapless"?
Is she some pathetic loser who only got the position because she's a girl?
This is the 3rd scumbag who went before Congress and said that her University's "harassment policy" didn't ban people from calling for the genocide of every single Jew in Israel.
Then they tried to claim this was because of their University's great respect for free speech, which the biggest lie of the day.
She is scum, and deserves to be crushed at destroyed
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