Plog Number 255
What happened at Harvard
Hello Ploggers, how are you. I hope we are all being good to ourselves these days in particular. Whatever your self-care involves do it. We are entering the most dangerous time of the year for😢 depression. The holidays are over. The💨 cold is setting into our very bones for the winter. The days are short and ☁️ cloudy in my neck of the world. The next big holiday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We are taking down the tree and decorations and trying to reclaim a clean house. So I guess I will be doing yoga, line dance, journaling and sleeping in. The countdown is on until spring, but it is a far way off.
I would like to talk about the former President of Harvard Ms. Claudine Gay. Gay was in the position for just 6 months. She got the position in September 2023. She was the first black President of Harvard in 387 years. The official reason she stepped down was allegations of plagiarism and a backlash over what was described as an inadequate response to campus anti-Semitism. Ever since the October 7, Hamas attack on Israel the number of anti-Semitic issues has risen on college campuses across the country. Gay’s response was silent for two days after the Hamas attack. Jewish leaders at Harvard have said that the anti-Semitism at Harvard was much older than Gay’s short tenure. The Jewish Insider also said that the “Root problem of anti-semitism at Harvard remains after Gay's resignation.” Another important fact is that Harvard did not ever accuse Gay of Plagiarism or mishandling of the Israel- Hamas anti-semitism. Keep reading, The answers to where that came from is next up. Duh duh daaaa!!!
I have been doing some 👀 research on this situation and ran into an old familiar name. The name is Christopher Rufo. It was like running into an old dirty💩 sock. I wrote a plog on him about a year ago. Rufo is the founder of the misleading term "Critical Race Theory". He prides himself on being able to insert his CRT to any situation he wants. He is a graduate of the Harvard Extension, which is not the same as Harvard. Some feel that the ouster of Gay was in part due to Rufo and forces that hate diversity, equity and inclusion also known as DEI. Also there was a Republican Congressional hearing lead by Elise Stefanik (R ) New York. Gay was one of three women college presidents who participated in this hearing. Other female college presidents were University of Pennsylvania’s Elizabeth Mc Gill and MIT President Sally Cornbluth. Both Mc Gill and Cornbluth stepped down soon after the hearing. Gay was the last to fall. On December 9 she too stepped down. Billionaire donors were threatening to pull their money💸 from the school. Money and race are always factors.
I think that there is a lot more to the situation than what we currently know. Was Gay insensitive to Jewish students? Did she make comments that were in appropriate regarding the Israel Hamas war? Was Gay guilty of plagiarism in her thesis or anywhere? Did she not use the rules of Citation correctly? Did she try to pull a George Santos and lie on her resume? Did she pull a Melania Trump and mimic Michelle Obama's speech, word for word ? Not a lot of details are being said about what happened. Things are being kept private. Gay herself said that she did not want the situation to be focused on one person while dragging down the whole institution. One thing I do know is that Gay would never have been given the position in the first place without a lot of vetting and triple checking. A black woman does not get a position like she had without being extraordinarily over qualified. So the whole thing smacks of a problem, I am just not sure what it is. Time ⌚️ will tell the story, and I will be here to Plog about it. Never fear and RECLAIM!
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