The last few weeks of former Harvard President Claudine Gay’s presidency were marred by mounting charges of plagiarism, which ultimately led to her resignation on Tuesday afternoon. Gay’s academic career has been marred by claims, many of which are trivial in and of themselves but throw doubt on her scholarship.
Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned today in the wake of allegations of persistent academic plagiarism, which were initially reported by City Journal, the Manhattan Institute’s internal newspaper. Christopher F. Rufo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal, co-wrote that initial article. Since then, he has been a key figure in the national dialogue on Gay’s leadership and academic integrity.
MSNBC host Symone Sanders-Townsend believes Harvard President Claudine Gay was “targeted” because she is a black woman pic.twitter.com/UO5dnMMaEu
— Julia 🇺🇸 (@Jules31415) January 3, 2024
The public’s awareness of the shifting ideological landscape at Harvard and other prestigious colleges, as well as the intricate connection between the emergence of campus antisemitism and progressive racial orthodoxy, has also been aided by City Journal. In her “The Academy at a Crossroads” (Part I, Part II), Heather Mac Donald described in detail how the emergence of DEI (diversity, equality, and inclusion) bureaucracies has suppressed free expression and encouraged an anti-Western culture that is becoming more and more ingrained in the curriculum. View story of Claudine Gay resigns
Ilya Shapiro, the director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, has also been vocal in exposing the alarming conditions at Harvard and other prestigious universities. In light of her resignation, he provides the following analysis:
The difficult situation at Harvard is not resolved by the president’s resignation. In fact, it doesn’t even put a stop to the plagiarism problem because the Harvard Corporation is still accountable for ignoring the first accusations and employing a legal firm to intimidate reporters who had the inside word. There are still bigger issues with a poisonous campus climate and bureaucratic bloat that prevent free thought and investigation, and Harvard is by no means the only university involved in this quagmire.
