My Statement on the Resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay
I, a student at Harvard University, have some things to say about our dear, departed former president.
Claudine Gay has resigned as president of Harvard University after a record-breaking(ly short) tenure of six months in the top seat. Plagued by her disastrous appearance at a House committee hearing on antisemitism, compounded by the revelation that sections of her academic scholarship appear to have been plagiarized, Gay still seemed poised to weather the storm with the backing of Harvard’s board and corporation — until she didn’t, since she resigned yesterday afternoon.
That’s why I, a Harvard student of middling credentials and fast typing fingers, am penning this op-ed to share my necessary and timely voice on The Issues. Ezra Klein, please answer my phone calls.
It all began when the president’s office made the questionable decision to say “yes” to a House committee subpoena, then made the even worse decision to hire and not use their exorbitantly paid PR consultants in favor of some dude’s lawyers. During an absolutely made-for-primetime clip, Former President Gay said a couple of things (don’t ask me what) which implied that Harvard might treat hate speech against Jewish students with a less-than-heavy hand. What did her questioners actually think about antisemitism? Who’s to say! But things did not bode well for Claudine, especially after her fellow fashionable-pantsuit-wearing president Liz Magill resigned.
Elise Stefanik, who nominated some rando college wrestling coach to be Speaker of the House a few months ago, called the hearing the “greatest scandal of any college or university in history.” And she’s right! We should all be scandalized. So scandalized. About what? Well, that really depends on who you ask — and I’m not really in the business of making enemies these days, not when I’ve got a city council seat or county executiveship in my future.
Ezra Klein, please answer my phone calls.
To make matters worse, after declining billionaire Harvard donor Bill Ackman’s invitation of a dinner date, Gay immediately committed the crime of “publishing academic work in the nineties.” With the help of AI and plagiarism-checking software, some unbiased third parties dug into her body of scholarship, and it came up lacking — in what ways, please don’t make me do another google search.
Did the pile-on have anything to do with her gender or racial identity (which I may or may not name; again, not trying to rock any boats)? Chris Rufo sure seems to think so. But he’s just one opinion! Maybe this was a super fair, colorblind and gender-equal process that could have happened to anyone. I’m sure a White guy in her shoes would have gotten the exact same amount of breathless coverage. I’m sure she, and she alone, deserved all twelve days on the front page of the New York Times.
This is like that time me and my buddies went to the Henry Kissinger candlelight vigil outside his old Harvard office building. Everyone in that crowd — Democrat and Republican, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish, Cambodian and People-Whose-Country-Bombed-The-Ever-Loving-Shit-Outta-Cambodia-n — had put aside their differences to remember a man who had done a lot of things. We could all agree: So many things. He did ‘em. Yessir. You can quote me on this: Claudine Gay is just like Henry Kissinger. She did a lot of things.
Ezra Klein, please answer my phone calls.