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Victor Davis Hanson: Harvard—Out the Frying Pan Into the Fire
American Greatness ^ | 4 Jan, 2024 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 01/04/2024 5:22:04 AM PST by MtnClimber

Gay’s removal is not the end of Harvard’s dilemma. Rather, it is the beginning.

Harvard may assume the forced resignation of its president, Claudine Gay, has finally ended its month-long scandal over her tenure.

Gay stepped down, remember, amid serious allegations of serial plagiarism—without refuting the charges. She proved either unable or unwilling to discipline those on her campus who were defiantly anti-Semitic in speech and action.

But Gay’s removal is not the end of Harvard’s dilemma. Rather, it is the beginning.

In the respective press releases from both Gay and the Harvard Corporation, racial animus was cited as a reason for her removal.

Gay did not even refer to her failure to stop anti-Semitism on her campus or her own record of blatant plagiarism.

Yet playing the race card reflects poorly on both and for a variety of reasons.

One, Gay’s meager publication record—a mere eleven articles without a single published book of her own—had somehow earned her a prior Harvard full professorship and presidency. Such a thin resume leading to academic stardom is unprecedented.

Two, the University of Pennsylvania forced the resignation of its president, Liz Magill. She sat next to Gay during that now-infamous congressional hearing in which they both claimed they were unable to discipline blatant anti-Semitism on their campuses.

Instead, both plead “free speech” and “context” considerations.

Such excuses were blatantly amoral and untrue. In truth, ivy-league campuses routinely sanction, punish, or remove staff, faculty, or students deemed culpable for speech or behavior deemed hurtful to protected minorities—except apparently white males and Jews.

Yet Magill was immediately forced to resign, and Gay was not. Also noteworthy was Magill’s far more impressive and extensive administrative experience, along with a more prestigious scholarship that was free of even a suggestion of plagiarism.

(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: dei; vdh; victordavishanson
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1 posted on 01/04/2024 5:22:04 AM PST by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

It is nice to see leftism on full display. Though most people just don’t pay attention.


2 posted on 01/04/2024 5:22:14 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: texas booster

VDH ping


3 posted on 01/04/2024 5:22:38 AM PST by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: texas booster
...protected minorities—except apparently white males and Jews

A rare slip by the usually brilliant VDH. White males aren't protected minorities. Unless, VDH is saying white men should be a protected minority group since they are a minority, both in the nation as a whole (women outnumber men in the U.S.) and especially at colleges.

4 posted on 01/04/2024 5:28:08 AM PST by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: MtnClimber

I wrote this elsewhere…what seems to have been the camel back-breaking straw was Gay’s plagiarism.

Now ponder this reality…yes, plagiarism is bad, and we’re talking about a research university.

But in the end, Harvard was ok with pro-genocide bullying, but not ok with plagiarism.


5 posted on 01/04/2024 5:33:13 AM PST by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s²)
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To: MtnClimber

She only got the gig because of her race and was canned because of her blatant incompetence.

It’s the new American way and I have to deal with it too on a daily basis. And it drives me nuts.


6 posted on 01/04/2024 5:33:16 AM PST by CodeJockey
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To: Tell It Right
Unless, VDH is saying white men should be a protected minority group since they are a minority, both in the nation as a whole (women outnumber men in the U.S.) and especially at colleges.

I think this was the intent.

7 posted on 01/04/2024 5:35:41 AM PST by marktwain
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To: DoodleBob

Good point.


8 posted on 01/04/2024 5:36:33 AM PST by wintertime ( Behind every government school teacher stand armed police.( Real bullets in those guns on the hip!))
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To: MtnClimber

It’s too late - They have been revealed to all.

Nearly 400 years, and now it’s all gone.

There can be no recovery.


9 posted on 01/04/2024 5:37:09 AM PST by Macoozie (Roll MAGA, roll!)
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To: MtnClimber
One, Gay’s meager publication record—a mere eleven articles without a single published book of her own—had somehow earned her a prior Harvard full professorship and presidency. Such a thin resume leading to academic stardom is unprecedented.

Well, everyone knows why she was awarded the professorship and it had nothing to do with her academic achievements (because there were virtually none).

10 posted on 01/04/2024 5:37:30 AM PST by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.)
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To: DoodleBob

It’s not the plagiarism ... it’s the pissed off donors ...


11 posted on 01/04/2024 5:38:55 AM PST by bankwalker (Repeal the 19th ...)
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To: wintertime

One by one, American symbols, institutions and cultural icons are destroyed. Gosh it’s almost like a (shadow president) is doing it on purpose for his paymasters.....


12 posted on 01/04/2024 5:38:57 AM PST by Skul
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To: MtnClimber

She was a three-box diversity hire. Harvard didn’t want a president, they wanted a queer woman of color for show, and look what they got. Maybe people are over that nonsense now.


13 posted on 01/04/2024 5:41:08 AM PST by bk1000 (Banned from Breitbart)
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To: bk1000

“they wanted a queer woman of color for show,”

I she queer? (I know she’s weird.) There was a pic of her with her white male husband posted a day or two ago.


14 posted on 01/04/2024 5:43:56 AM PST by MayflowerMadam ("A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.")
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To: MtnClimber
except apparently white males and Jews.

... and conservative speakers.

15 posted on 01/04/2024 5:46:05 AM PST by FroggyTheGremlim (Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!)
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To: MtnClimber

Neither Jew-hatred nor plagiarism are wrong if they’re committed by the “right” sort of people.


16 posted on 01/04/2024 5:46:42 AM PST by Mr Ramsbotham ("God is a spirit, and man His means of walking on the earth.")
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To: DoodleBob
But in the end, Harvard was ok with pro-genocide bullying, but not ok with plagiarism.

Ostensibly so. But as Hanson notes, Harvard has no problem with keeping a known serial plagiarist on its professorial staff, along with her $900,000 per annum salary.

17 posted on 01/04/2024 5:49:36 AM PST by Mr Ramsbotham ("God is a spirit, and man His means of walking on the earth.")
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To: Skul

Leftists (and muslims) goal is the destruction of Western Civilization. This destruction of Harvard is still a success to them.


18 posted on 01/04/2024 5:49:53 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (Objective: Permanently break the will of the population to ever wage war again.)
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To: Rummyfan
Well, everyone knows why she was awarded the professorship and it had nothing to do with her academic achievements (because there were virtually none).

They put her forth as a shining example of what black people can achieve if they really put their minds to it. Like a bonobo who gets a D-minus in algebra ... a true phenomenon.

19 posted on 01/04/2024 5:52:29 AM PST by Mr Ramsbotham ("God is a spirit, and man His means of walking on the earth.")
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To: MtnClimber

They used to call them learning institutions, or institutions of higher learning. But what are they learning? Time to take back our Universities.


20 posted on 01/04/2024 5:54:13 AM PST by silent majority rising (When it is dark enough, men see the stars. Ralph Waldo Emerson)
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