resignation of Harvard President, Claudine Gay.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67869624
Some excerpts:
Although allegations of plagiarism in her (Dr. Gay) doctoral thesis were a factor in her exit from Harvard's top job, her departure is more than just an academic dishonesty scandal.
Dr Gay landed in hot water in December for her participation in a congressional hearing panel about antisemitism on college campuses. The tepid, bureaucratic answers by the panellists, including Dr Gay, on how to deal with calls for Jewish genocide prompted the resignation of University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill.
After that episode, Harvard offered continued support for Dr Gay's tenure as president. But the battle was not over.
For her right-wing critics, Dr Gay - who is black - represents much of what they loathe about modern American higher education, which they view as being dominated by a left-wing ideology that places a greater emphasis on ethnic and gender diversity than on academic rigour.
The plagiarism allegations that led to Dr Gay's resignation were surfaced by Christopher Rufo, a right-wing activist best known for the cultural battle over alleged teaching of Critical Race Theory in US schools.
In a December social media post, Mr Rufo laid out what is a now-familiar strategy for conservatives seeking to generate coverage of stories they believe the mainstream media are ignoring.
We launched the Claudine Gay plagiarism story from the right," Mr Rufo wrote. The next step is to smuggle it into the media apparatus of the left, legitimizing the narrative to centre-left actors who have the power to topple her. Then squeeze.
In her resignation letter, Dr Gay said she was "subjected to personal attacks and threats fuelled by racial animus", adding that the last few weeks had made clear that more must be done to "combat bias and hate in all its forms".
"So what we've learned is this: Bad-faith bigots pretending they're concerned about antisemitism will happily use women of colour - especially black women - as a scapegoat and lightning rod for large systemic issues," wrote novelist Celeste Ng on social media. "And that people invested in maintaining those systemic issues will comply." |
