30 Comments

I see the perennial race hustlers came to Gay's defence, led by the likes of Sharpton, Cornell West and others, claiming she was forced out because of her colour. Really? So plagiarism had nothing to do with it, nor her abysmal performance defending anti-Semitism on campus? I didn't see any of these individuals protesting on the resignation of Magill from Penn, but then she is white so deserves her fate. DEI needs to be consigned to the garbage can of history, along with its proponents.

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Good point about Magill. Gay should have resigned at the same time Magill did. Then we wouldn't even be talking about plagiarism. Now certain people are just using that to distract from the real issue, which is rampant antisemitism on campus.

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If rampant antisemitism is the real issue (and I agree it is), you sure spent a good portion of your piece arguing that a black woman president of Harvard could only get into that (‘white man’s’) position because of DEI. There’s no other possible way that a female from an ‘inferior race’ could be that successful, right? Shouldn’t she be mopping the floor someplace, am I right?

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I actually spent very little time on her plagiarism charges, and more time on the media's interpretation of those charges, which coincidentally are much like your apparent interpretation...

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Harvard is about 380 years old so for more than 90% of the college’s history, it operated the under extreme program of affirmative action for white males. The moment a non-white non-male rises to a position of power for the first time in that 380-year history, the white males cry that it’s ‘unfair’. Pretty incredible when you think about it.

Complaining that a person of color or a woman who succeeds can only have done so because of ‘diversity quotas’ or something, is just straight up white supremacy. You’re literally saying that white males are inherently superior.

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I'm the racist?

The reason she's gone is not really because of plagiarism, but because she tolerated and defended ACTUAL racism. The plagiarism thing was a convenient way to get her out - like charging a mafia boss with tax evasion.

You saying that in spite of her being guilty of 50 counts of plagiarism, she should still be eligible to run the most prestigious learning institution in the world is the very definition of a diversity quota. A white man would never get away with that, nor should he.

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She lost her job because she messed up her congressional hearing about Israel and she made a lot of very powerful enemies. I think if you went through the records of any other college president, you could find plenty of things to fire them for, that’s what ‘cancel culture’ is all about. She should’ve just stepped down when she messed up. The narrative now is “see what happens when you hire a black chick for a white man’s role?” which is racist bs.

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The only people bringing her race into it are those who are upset she's gone. No one who wanted her out has ever mentioned race.

Who's the racist again?

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Then what does the title of the article mean? Why is DEI the main focus here?

“(Harvard) found that, while they found “instances of inadequate citation” that there was no evidence that Gay had violated the school’s standards for research misconduct.” - plagiarism today

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/01/plagiarism-war-claudine-gay/677020/

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/12/18/opinion/claudine-gay-harvard-plagiarism-academic-standards/

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00035-6

https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2023/12/12/understanding-the-claudine-gay-plagiarism-scandal/

They fired her because she’s a liability, not because she copied text. They hired her in the first place because of her outstanding resume, not because she’s a black chick. Even if she was given some preferential treatment due of her identity, what’s wrong with that? If we’ve had hundreds of years of keeping certain groups down and completely excluded, what’s wrong with giving those groups some long-overdue representation?

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What are you asking? What's wrong with giving black people representation? Nothing. But what does that even mean? If I'm looking to hire someone to do a job, it's got nothing to do with "representation". It's irrelevant as far as the job goes.

The reason this piece is about DEI is because of the culture DEI has created on campus, specifically the antisemitism.

But DEI *requires* representation, so because of that, it has left itself open to precisely what we're discussing. Now, there will always be a question as to whether someone was hired (or a student admitted) for their ability, or to fill a quota. It's actually quite insulting.

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What’s it got to do with representation? If you’ve got a long wall with framed photos of every single Harvard president since its inception, and it’s a nothing but white male faces, doesn’t that perpetuate itself? Doesn’t that make non-white non-males believe they don’t belong and that white males are naturally destined to hold such positions? Isn’t it a good idea to tip the scales a little so that a young colored girl can look up and see a non-white non-male face on the wall and believe she can be too? This is how systemic racism works. We’ve been operating a system of white supremacy for so long that it becomes necessary to give it a little nudge in the right direction sometimes to break that chain. It’s not like she’s unqualified for the position. She just happened to have the diversity card also in her deck. I think it’s a good thing.

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Ask yourself this: Do you really think Gay was hired into that position solely because of her scholarly ability and leadership experience? Do you think if a white man or woman had her same resume they'd be the obvious hire? I (and you, if you're honest) would highly doubt it.

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I have no idea what the criteria for such a role would be, but looking at her background she seems exactly the type of pedigree, education, and experience they would select.

She was an Army brat from a wealthy family, who went to a private boarding school in New Hampshire before going to Princeton, Stanford, then a PHD from Harvard, she won the Anna Laura Myers Prize for economics, and the Toppan Prize for the best dissertation in political science. She’s worked as an academic at Ivy League schools for her whole career. She’s unqualified??

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