Harvard’s President and the Corruption of Higher Education

What’s happening: Harvard president Claudine Gay is currently the subject of numerous scandals. But the Harvard board recently voted unanimously to keep her as president. It’s the latest in a long line of examples of left-wingers failing upwards at America’s Ivy League.

• Catch up: Gay refused at a recent congressional hearing to unequivocally state that calling for the genocide of Jews constituted a violation of Harvard’s policies. Then conservative journalists looking into Gay’s background uncovered a long history of plagiarism.

Double standards: Other Harvard presidents have been ousted for far less. Larry Summers, for example, resigned in 2006 after suggesting biological differences between men and women might explain the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering.

• Canceller-in-chief: Gay publicly supported in 2019 the removal of Ronald Sullivan as the dean of Harvard’s Winthrop House because Sullivan was working on Harvey Weinstein’s legal defense. Later she helped facilitate the ouster of Harvard professor David Kane for inviting “The Bell Curve” author Charles Murray to deliver an online lecture.

Business as usual: These hypocrisies seem to be a feature, not a bug, of contemporary “higher learning.” There’s a long list of Democrats no longer in power who have landed at top universities.

• Lori Lightfoot: Chicago crime hit record highs, but its mayor, who oversaw such a spike, was invited to serve as a visiting fellow at Harvard’s School of Public Health.

• Chesa Boudin: San Francisco’s former district attorney approached crime in ways that contributed to the city by the Bay’s disorder and danger. Boudin now leads Berkeley’s new Criminal Law & Justice Center.

• Anthony Fauci: The architect of COVID lockdowns recently joined Georgetown’s medical school as a Distinguished University Professor.

A corrupt system: Beneath the surface, America’s most prestigious universities run on political favoritism and self-dealing. “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” protects presidents like Gay who is only one of many beneficiaries of that system.