In October 2023, Harvard University launched an investigation into accusations of plagiarism made against its president, Claudine Gay, concluding that her failure to credit others was unfortunate but did not meet the school’s standards for research misconduct. Critics pointed out that what she did would have likely led to the expulsion of a Harvard undergraduate, and some students were enraged over being held to a higher standard than their president. From inside and outside the university, there were calls for Gay’s resignation, and a few invitations for the 12 members of the Harvard Corporation governing board to resign or be forcibly replaced.
Though Gay would, in fact, step down eventually, the damage was done. The word “rot” was used in critiquing Harvard’s minimizing of her infractions, which was seen as part of the school’s current progressive ethos, which puts achieving social and racial goals ahead of traditional academic considerations. Harvard students acknowledged that these ideas permeate coursework and even casual student discussions.
Harvard’s version of DEI — the institutionalization of diversity, equality and inclusion — embraces the false Marxian insistence that all human experience, present and past, can be understood as interactions between the oppressed and those who oppress them. One Harvard professor claimed that many of his colleagues gave “A” grades to just about everyone to avoid challenges supported by students’ DEI advocates, hired by Harvard to ensure that DEI policies are enforced. As academic dean and president, Claudine Gay strongly pushed programs that promote DEI agendas. It remains to be seen how these policies will affect what is being taught and learned in Harvard’s classrooms.
John McWhorter, associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University and author of “Woke Racism” and “Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America,” among other works, directly addressed the racial overtones of Claudine Gay’s — and Harvard’s — present predicament in a New York Times op-ed, supporting her ouster:
“That Dr. Gay is Black gives this an especially bad look. If she stays in her job, the optics will be that a middling publication record and chronically lackadaisical attention to crediting sources is somehow OK for a university president if she is Black. This implication will be based on a fact sad but impossible to ignore: that it is difficult to identify a white university president with a similar background. Are we to let pass a tacit idea that for Black scholars and administrators, the symbolism of our Blackness, our ‘diverseness,’ is what matters most about us?”
Claudine Gay’s interpretation of DEI exemplifies a warped rendering of diversity, equity and inclusion. At Harvard and other schools, “equity” is bleeding into exceptionalism, with major allowances being made for some students and faculty based exclusively on race. This entitlement calls out the underrepresentation of Black Americans as an evil to be remedied by forced racial quotas, in the name of reparations. Any authentic implementation of DEI would include an acceptance of the idea that no one should be given a job, a promotion or any other opportunity — or be denied one — because of their race.
To ensure that our country does not lose its edge — a devolvement that would ruinously affect Americans of all races eventually — those who pursue racial justice under the cloak of wokeness need to keep in mind that America, at its best, has been a meritocracy. When the Harvard Corporation, Harvard’s main governing body since 1650, chose Claudine Gay as their 30th president, it does not appear that excellence, once a Harvard byword, figured prominently in their decision. Harvard’s leaders decided instead to follow the directive of wokeness, in what appears to be an instance of John McWhorter’s “woke racism.”
Harvard stands disgraced — brought low by a fraudulent interpretation and propagation of DEI. How an institution of such distinction could succumb so totally to this lie will, one day, become fodder for historians and others whose mission it is to understand human behavior. Claudine Gay, finally nudged by the Harvard Corporation, resigned her presidency on Jan. 2, 2024.
These tribulations have not left me untouched. Though I never attended Harvard, many of those who were major formative influences on my life and work did. I am grateful for the knowledge I gained knowing and working with these scientists and humanists. To compromise the value of their work or legacies, or that of other brilliant Harvard alumni, by lowering the standards of this storied institution would be unfortunate, to say the least.
René J. Muller (mullerrenej@aol.com) is the author, most recently, of “The Four Domains of Mental Illness: An Alternative to the DSM-5” and “Trump’s Pathological Presidency: A Malignant Narcissist Subverts Truth, Justice and the American Way.”