Science

As we all know by now, Harvard’s President Claudine Gay the first black woman head of the University, resigned on Tuesday (her letter of resignation, here, is also reproduced below the fold).  In her formal letter she doesn’t explain why she resigned, but simply says this:

. . . . after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.

There’s a soupçon of self-pity in her resignation, as well as calling attention to “personal attacks” and “threats fueled by racial animus.” I don’t doubt she received these, but had it been me, considerations of dignity would have compelled me to omit this stuff.  Still, it doesn’t bother me that much, but it’s worth noting this stuff:

Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.

Originally there was speculation that Gay might resign because of her rather uninspiring performance testifying before a House committee, but I didn’t think her performance was that bad: she reiterated that Harvard’s speech code allowed people to call for Jewish genocide on some occasions, but not others. As she implied, “context matters,” and that’s true if one is adhering to the First Amendment. The problem was that Harvard had never adhered to the First Amendment, for it has no speech code stipulating that. Rather, Harvard applied its speech code unevenly, sanctioning or warning some people for “offenses” far smaller than saying, “Gas the Jews.”  The problem was not context but hypocrisy.

That said, I thought that this could be a “teachable moment” for Gay and Harvard, one that might prompt her and the Overseers to finally fix the problems with “free” speech at Harvard. But when accusations of plagiarism began accumulating, and were undoubtedly plagiarism, eventually her position became untenable (see above).  Do note that those accusations were leveled largely by conservatives: Christopher Rufo and the New York Post.  This shows you that, unless you want a plagiarist as President of Harvard, it’s not good to write off what conservatives say simply because of their politics.

Gay will be replaced temporarily by economist and physician Alan Garber, Harvard’s provost and chief academic officer. And then the search will begin for Gay’s replacement. There is lots of speculation here (will it be another black woman?, etc.), but I won’t engage in any prognostications. As for Gay, she will return to her position as tenured professor of government and African and African American studies. But the tweet below suggests that she’s going to keep the enormous salary she got as President—nearly a million bucks a year. And that implies that she made some kind of deal with the Overseers to resign quietly so long as she got to keep that huge salary.  To me that seems unfair, but it’s better for Harvard that she leaves and gets a big salary than if she stayed.

"Gay will now return to a role within the political science department, and will retain a salary on the same level as while she was president."

Cheating upwards, Gay returns to low-output low-impact scholarship, soothed by a $900,000/year salary.https://t.co/cTafPDhChy

— i/o (@eyeslasho) January 3, 2024

 

The New York Times allowed Dr. Gay to respond to her “resignation”—surely more than just a suggestion from the Corporation—by writing an op-ed giving her take on the matter. And I have to say that she’s far less dignified, far too unwilling to own up to why she was fired, and far too self-pitying for such a piece.It makes her look petty, fragile, and too willing to blame others for her faults.  She should have just stuck by her resignation letter. Click the headline below to read.

I’ve reproduced her op-ed, paragraph by paragraph (indented) with my own comments, which are flush left.

Gay begins with a combination of self-pity, virtue-flaunting, and deflecting the blame for her resignation onto others.  Now I have no use for people who threaten her or use the n-word, but again, considerations of dignity would, at least to me, mandate that she leave this stuff out.  The bit about “weaponizing her presidency”, and accusing “demagogues” (Ackman?) of engaging in a campaign to erode the ideals of Harvard is simply silly, and makes her look unwilling to accept any culpability. Furthermore, it’s not right. People like Steve Pinker have used the occasion not to impugn Gay or call for her resignation, but to lay out principles Harvard could use to improve itself.

On Tuesday, I made the wrenching but necessary decision to resign as Harvard’s president. For weeks, both I and the institution to which I’ve devoted my professional life have been under attack. My character and intelligence have been impugned. My commitment to fighting antisemitism has been questioned. My inbox has been flooded with invective, including death threats. I’ve been called the N-word more times than I care to count.

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.

Continuing on:

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. Campaigns of this kind often start with attacks on education and expertise, because these are the tools that best equip communities to see through propaganda. But such campaigns don’t end there. Trusted institutions of all types — from public health agencies to news organizations — will continue to fall victim to coordinated attempts to undermine their legitimacy and ruin their leaders’ credibility. For the opportunists driving cynicism about our institutions, no single victory or toppled leader exhausts their zeal.

Here she shows what, exactly, is “bigger than me” (it should have been “bigger than I”). She clearly blames anti-wokeness as the force behind attacks on her.  Or at least that’s how I interpret it, for I can see no other forces trying to undermine “trusted institutions of all types”. Yes, the antiwoke went after the liberal media, but did they go after “public health agencies”? Perhaps, if you think that that’s what motivated the conspiracy theorists and Republicans who fought covid mandates. (But some of them were right, viz., about the value of masking and closing schools.)  Here Gay lumps together a whole bunch of disparate groups—conservatives, conspiracy theorists, people concerned with the truth about medicine, and liberals like me—as her “basket of demagogues.” The Associated Press implies that in the tweet below.  But does it really matter whether liberals, conservatives, or centrists call attention to plagiarism, so long as it turns out to be true?

Harvard president's resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism https://t.co/GiVkT3LgUo

— The Associated Press (@AP) January 3, 2024

Gay continues:

Yes, I made mistakes. In my initial response to the atrocities of Oct. 7, I should have stated more forcefully what all people of good conscience know: Hamas is a terrorist organization that seeks to eradicate the Jewish state. And at a congressional hearing last month, I fell into a well-laid trap. I neglected to clearly articulate that calls for the genocide of Jewish people are abhorrent and unacceptable and that I would use every tool at my disposal to protect students from that kind of hate.

Well, it would have been better for her not to have doubled down on Hamas, but rather to point out the hypocrisy of Harvard’s uneven enforcement of the speech code,  noting how odd it was that calls for adherence to the First Amendment arose only when that Amendment would have permitted calls for genocide against Jews.  But yes, she appeared wooden and unengaged, and she could have done better. Blame the lawyers. Still, her performance alone would not have gotten her to “resign” (the euphemism for “being asked to leave”).

Then she goes on to the plagiarism charges, refusing to admit she copied (well, she could hardly admit that, could she?):

Most recently, the attacks have focused on my scholarship. My critics found instances in my academic writings where some material duplicated other scholars’ language, without proper attribution. I believe all scholars deserve full and appropriate credit for their work. When I learned of these errors, I promptly requested corrections from the journals in which the flagged articles were published, consistent with how I have seen similar faculty cases handled at Harvard.

I have never misrepresented my research findings, nor have I ever claimed credit for the research of others. Moreover, the citation errors should not obscure a fundamental truth: I proudly stand by my work and its impact on the field.

Despite the obsessive scrutiny of my peer-reviewed writings, few have commented on the substance of my scholarship, which focuses on the significance of minority office holding in American politics. My research marshaled concrete evidence to show that when historically marginalized communities gain a meaningful voice in the halls of power, it signals an open door where before many saw only barriers. And that, in turn, strengthens our democracy.

Here plagiarism becomes “material that duplicated other scholars’ language, without proper attribution”.  It’s been euphemisms all the way down with her and Harvard, with nobody daring to use the p-word.  However, she requested corrections of only three items (there were forty or more), and attributed her mistakes to “errors”—as do all plagiarists. It’s hardly possible, I think, to engage in the amount of plagiarism she did without knowing that you’re doing something wrong.  She also decries the people who brought her down as being afflicted with “obsessive scrutiny”.  Her “scholarship” is still under question, with some saying that what she published from her thesis differs from what the original sources say, but we’ll wait to see how that shakes out.

Throughout this work, I asked questions that had not been asked, used then-cutting-edge quantitative research methods and established a new understanding of representation in American politics. This work was published in the nation’s top political science journals and spawned important research by other scholars.

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. They recycled tired racial stereotypes about Black talent and temperament. They pushed a false narrative of indifference and incompetence.

I’ll let others assess her scholarship and methods, but let it be known that she published a total of only eleven papers in her career (and edited one volume), a remarkably thin record of scholarship for a scholar picking up the reins of Harvard. As for the “truth” of her research, other scholars are now vetting her papers (some have claimed that she won’t provide her original data), and we’ll see what happens. If she did manipulate or misrepresent data, that is one thing that could cost her her job at Harvard, though I doubt that this will happen.

It is not lost on me that I make an ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety about the generational and demographic changes unfolding on American campuses: a Black woman selected to lead a storied institution. Someone who views diversity as a source of institutional strength and dynamism. Someone who has advocated a modern curriculum that spans from the frontier of quantum science to the long-neglected history of Asian Americans. Someone who believes that a daughter of Haitian immigrants has something to offer to the nation’s oldest university.

Above she descends deeply into defensiveness and self-pity, and most clearly plays the race card, which is beneath her. Yes, racists may have assailed her, but she should ignore them in a public discussion like this, except perhaps for a brief mention. There’s no evidence that she was attacked by Rufo, Ackman and the NY Post because of her race. In Ackman’s case, it was clearly his being fed up with the antisemitism at Harvard, not Gay’s race. Self-pity is undignified.

Finally, she engages in a bit of virtue flaunting, and once again refers to the demagogues who brought her down, implying that she was unfairly pressured to resign by Evil Outside Forces pursuing an agenda to destroy Harvard’s wonderful values:

I still believe that. As I return to teaching and scholarship, I will continue to champion access and opportunity, and I will bring to my work the virtue I discussed in the speech I delivered at my presidential inauguration: courage. Because it is courage that has buoyed me throughout my career and it is courage that is needed to stand up to those who seek to undermine what makes universities unique in American life.

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. Too often they are pursuing self-serving agendas that should be met with more questions and less credulity.

College campuses in our country must remain places where students can learn, share and grow together, not spaces where proxy battles and political grandstanding take root. Universities must remain independent venues where courage and reason unite to advance truth, no matter what forces set against them.

It all comes down to this summary statement: “Antiwoke people, including demagogues, brought me down, largely because of my race. Yes, I made mistakes, but they were trivial. In the end, it was political grandstanding that pried me out of my position as President. And by the way, I’m a very good person.”

She’s enmired in victimhood. Color me unimpressed.

Click “continue reading” to see Gay’s letter of resignation:

Forgive the formatting, which is what happened when I did a cut-and-paste on her letter.

Dear Members of the Harvard Community,

It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president. This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have looked forward to working with so many of you to advance the commitment to academic excellence that has propelled this great university across centuries. But, after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.

It is a singular honor to be a member of this university, which has been my home and my inspiration for most of my professional career. My deep sense of connection to Harvard and its people has made it all the more painful to witness the tensions and divisions that have riven our community in recent months, weakening the bonds of trust and reciprocity that should be our sources of strength and support in times of crisis. Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.

I believe in the people of Harvard because I see in you the possibility and the promise of a better future. These last weeks have helped make clear the work we need to do to build that future — to combat bias and hate in all its forms, to create a learning environment in which we respect each other’s dignity and treat one another with compassion, and to affirm our enduring commitment to open inquiry and free expression in the pursuit of truth. I believe we have within us all that we need to heal from this period of tension and division and to emerge stronger. I had hoped with all my heart to lead us on that journey, in partnership with all of you. As I now return to the faculty, and to the scholarship and teaching that are the lifeblood of what we do, I pledge to continue working alongside you to build the community we all deserve.

When I became president, I considered myself particularly blessed by the opportunity to serve people from around the world who saw in my presidency a vision of Harvard that affirmed their sense of belonging — their sense that Harvard welcomes people of talent and promise, from every background imaginable, to learn from and grow with one another. To all of you, please know that those doors remain open, and Harvard will be stronger and better because they do.

As we welcome a new year and a new semester, I hope we can all look forward to brighter days. Sad as I am to be sending this message, my hopes for Harvard remain undimmed. When my brief presidency is remembered, I hope it will be seen as a moment of reawakening to the importance of striving to find our common humanity — and of not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education. I trust we will all find ways, in this time of intense challenge and controversy, to recommit ourselves to the excellence, the openness, and the independence that are crucial to what our university stands for — and to our capacity to serve the world.

Sincerely,
Claudine Gay

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