Apparently, users disagreed, so I’ll help out to ensure the moderators can enjoy.
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Happy holidays
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And here is today’s NY Times article about Harvard and Claudine Gay (gift link):
It shocks me that so many people on the board seem completely unable to understand that there is no way for Claudine Gay to stay on and be effective. And given that reality, it is best to stem the bleeding now.
Fortunately, at least one person on the board seemed to understood that just getting rid of Claudine Gay might not be enough, and that a “generational change” might be required.
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"Dr. Pinker, the Harvard psychologist who attended the dinner with corporation members, and has been critical of Harvard, said the board’s fiduciary duty “is to safeguard the reputation of the university over the long term, and under their watch that has not happened.”
“There are deep problems,” he added, “and they are the corporation’s problems.”"
Steven Pinker is a no-nonsense guy. Always has been. The world needs more people like him.
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I don’t think this link has been posted here yet. I was able to access it as a free article. Author has a Harvard doctorate, is a former Harvard prof, and is currently a Hopkins prof/dean. He has direct experience in Harvard’s academic integrity review procedures (my emphasis):
“Harvard then took plagiarism seriously—and in one way still does, disciplining dozens of students every year for this gravest of academic sins. Even transgressions falling short of plagiarism could still constitute “misuse of sources,” for which a year’s probation and suspension from participation in extracurricular activities were the usual response. Plagiarists, meanwhile—those who had lifted someone else’s language without quotation marks or citation—were bounced from the college for a year, during which time they were required to work at a nonacademic job (no year-long backpacking trip) and refrain from visiting Cambridge. They would be readmitted after submitting a statement that examined their original misdeed and reflected on it.”
And:
“It is undisputed that Claudine Gay used other scholars’ language, often with the slightest modification or none, and occasionally without even a footnote acknowledgment. Were that not so, she would not have recently requested corrections to work dating back to her dissertation. I have looked at the evidence presented in various places, none of which has been controverted, and it is clear to me that this is plagiarism…
Even if, in the most tolerant and sympathetic of readings, this and similar copying merely constitute “misuse of sources,” it is disqualifying for a position of leadership at any university. Her failure to accept responsibility in stark and unqualified terms makes matters worse.“
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I presume she was Ackman’s contact on the board.
Ackman had tweeted that a board member had told him Harvard might need generational change before this New York Times article came out.
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Discussed upthread two days ago:
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One last NYT article (published a few hours ago) before the break:
“The board has declined to say whom among the corporation members had been responsible for reviewing her work, or which outside academics they enlisted to help.”
“In the past several weeks, more faculty members, donors, alumni and outsiders have raised questions about the corporation’s apparent failure to vet Dr. Gay’s scholarship before promoting her to the presidency in July and for its subsequent silence in recent weeks.
“The corporation should have done their homework, and apparently they did not,” said Avi Loeb, a Harvard science professor who has been publicly critical of the school’s response after the Hamas attack on Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed.”
And The Harvard Crimson got one in too:
“Now, the University is under fire for allegedly attempting to suppress claims of inadequate citation it later found were, at least in part, credible.”
And it’s more than slightly ironic that Gay’s/Harvard’s legal firm whined about an anonymous (and supposedly ChatGPT-generated!) complaint given Harvard’s decision not to release information about its perfunctory investigation:
“In the letter, Clare Locke also threatened future legal action against the New York Post.
“Why would someone making such a complaint be unwilling to attach their name to it?” the letter says.”
It’s pretty telling that the law firm that Harvard ran to when confronted with legitimate plagiarism accusations is one that specializes in defamation cases. They have one tool in their toolbox: threaten massive defamation lawsuits to try to squelch news reports.
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Bill Ackman tweeted that Harvard has asked Gay to resign but she has refused and said she will sue if she is fired:
I remain in agreement with Bill Ackman as imbedded in his tweet above…
“The sooner Gay is gone, the sooner repairing the damage can begin.”
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Not surprising.
As I stated above a few days ago, if Harvard tries to force her to reign, it will get really ugly. She will probably sue for racial discrimination and wrongful termination. And because she has supporters within Harvard, they will make it harder for her to be fired.
She will hang on and force their hand. If they want to get rid of her, they’ll have to pay a big price. She has zero incentive to resign.
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Really, in the long run will it change anyone’s mind about Harvard if they keep her or fire her? People that think Harvard is the best college ever and nothing can change that will continue to think so. Those who think (like me) that it is a fine education but that the school isn’t heads and tails above others will continue to be happy our kids had no interest and no ability to get in anyway. Over the last 10 years since I’ve been on CC, Harvard has had a lot of issues that I don’t think they handled very well, including the ‘no single sex clubs’ on or OFF campus (sure, let’s control who our students can associate with), the removal of several house deans, demonstrations, and of course the lawsuit. In all those ways, I think Harvard was less than top notch in handling them.
So I don’t think it would matter if Gay stays or goes. Harvard will continue to attract the top applicants, can offer top financial aid, can attract top scholars to teach. It’s not going out of business no matter who runs the place.
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If it doesn’t matter, they won’t ask her to resign and just keep the status quo.
if the Harvard Corporation did ask her to resign, it obviously does matter.
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Harvard certainly isn’t going out of business, but I think Ackman’s ambitions to “repair the damage” involve more widespread changes to the outlook and behavior of the institution. How that will go down with faculty and students remains to be seen.
Ackman’s ambitions are likely to match or (more likely) exceed the plans of Pennsylvania’s (Democrat) governor to push Penn to make changes including “recommendations on disciplining faculty, responding to vandalism and combating misinformation”.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/pennsylvania-governor-josh-shapiro-penn-159f1675
Any patterns?
The least damaging way for Harvard to get out of this appears to be to uncover new academic/plagiarism issues with Gay, which allows them to justify ‘termination for cause’ due to new information and ‘enough is enough.’ But with only 11 publications and how hard they have been scrutinized, it is unlikely anyone could dig up new dirt.
Harvard will not go out of business either way, but it could slip in application volume, donation, and other metrics that matter. A little bit of slip over a period of time can change mind, slightly dropping it from the “pinnacle” of the academic world among the public.
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Behind the scenes this will fast become about personal reputations and power dynamics. This is a list of members of the governing board.
Few are household names but all have successful careers, access and individual power and reputations to protect.
Who knew what and when will enter into each members individual response but at this point those making the decisions are consumed by self interest. These are not the type of people that will give up power or influence willingly and they will act accordingly regardless of their “true” views or the merits of the claims against Dr Gay and will have personal communications experts help craft their messaging as needed.
This is the Ivy League and power elite version of Game Of Thrones behind closed doors.
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If Harvard wants to minimize collateral damage and all the ugliness, they will just have to pay her off.
That is their only solution. There will be a point where she will say yes, a “mutually beneficial” decision and she’ll just taker her cash and go.
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I’ll bet dinner that Harvard has “lawyered up” and that a group of Associates is busy over Xmas week hammering out an agreement (with a gag order on both sides) which gives Gray a nice confidential payout in return for suddenly remembering she wants to spend more time with her family in 2024.
No guarantees that either side will agree to it… but somebody, somewhere has cancelled out on Christmas dinner right now…
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