To be fair, Harvard comes out incredibly badly whatever they do.
They were more than happy to support her until just now if this is to be believed.
The board didn’t want to give in to pressure from Ackman and other donors.
Yet if they now fire her or get her to resign, it looks like donors pretty much dictate what goes on in a college campus.
It looks like if you have enough money and political clout (Ackman), you can get to determine the way Harvard functions.
…unless they are Jewish;)
Of course Harvard looks bad because they screwed this up multiple times and are only left with bad choices. Bottom line: They didn’t take any of this seriously and now they’ll be paying a big price for their lack of due diligence.
Didn’t vet Gay’s academic work because she was a great “fit” and didnt expect her to plagiarize.
Lack of condemnation against anti-semitism on campus upsetting major donors.
Bad preparation and performance by President Gay at congressional testimony.
Blindly supported President Gay because no one takes the NY Post seriously.
Didnt perform a thorough investigation and underestimated the scope of the accusations.
Now getting peppered by the Harvard Crimson, NY Times, CNN, Washington Post and everybody.
More congressional hearing on plagiarism.
Unwanted publicity and calls for transparency on Harvard Corporation.
Speculation President Gay was asked to resign but won’t (surprise!)
Happy Holidays Harvard!
If Bill Ackman is correct that Claudine Gay was asked to resign but refused, that says a lot about her character.
Someone above said that leadership is about service to the organization and to the people. If she is actually refusing to resign, she is making this about herself rather than about how best to serve Harvard.
She’s be crazy to resign right now. She has ALL the leverage.
She resigns right now she gets whatever is in her contract re: severance, COBRA (to which she is legally entitled) and her unused vacation days!
If there’s a settlement in the works, what rational person would walk away now?
But if she makes them buy her out in a protracted hostile negotiation, she likely loses any shot at a continuing lesser position at Harvard. And what other institution would take her on now, even in just a professorship role?
She’s toast professionally no matter what happens now. So she might as well get herself an annuity while she’s on her way out.
You think she could get a Dean or another administrative role at Harvard right now? Unless it would be buried in the Ed School or Extension (and I don’t believe she’d take those) her options are closing in…
But if she makes them buy her out in a protracted hostile negotiation, she likely loses any shot at a continuing lesser position at Harvard. And what other institution would take her on now, even in just a professorship role?
Her career is already ruined. No institution would take her on as of this moment.
She might as well get a very large sum out of money out of this. While she clearly wasn’t qualified for the role, that’s on the board as well as her.
She is going to get a HUGE payout. My guess is she’ll never have to work again after this thing is settled.
Does Harvard really want to be sued for racial discrimination and be in the news every day?
Let’s investigate the Harvard Corporation some more.
Let’s have a student walk out in support of President Gay.
Let’s have faculty talk about social injustice and why she was singled out and how she was a scapegoat for Harvard’s discriminatory policies.
Nope.
Which would be truthful. Actually, it doesn’t even depend on Gay departing Harvard. The intent has already been made clear.
She is going to get a HUGE payout. My guess is she’ll never have to work again after this thing is settled.
Is there a legal reason for why she would get a payout in this hypothetical?
Poor job performance + plagiarism in her research doesn’t seem like there would be a legal case for arguing Harvard was being racially discriminatory.
Also, why would any student support Claudine Gay after all this evidence against her?
She’s a member of a protected class.
She has the support of some faculty who will testify on her behalf.
The Harvard Corporation supported her in the past so if they do a 180, it would make them look ridiculous despite new evidence which is arguably not that much because she never published that much. Then people would question what The Harvard Corporation is doing in the first place and their role in the process.
Harvard (like most elite institutions) is liberal and its students are liberal. Firing the only black president in their history would upset a lot of people.
Difficult to prove intent.
Litigation is expensive and discovery will uncover things Harvard will want to avoid because it’s never clean.
She will be advised to play hardball.
She’ll get a sinecure at a DEI-focused think tank somewhere, where the donors believe she’s been unfairly targeted. Clearly some people will continue to believe that this has all been stirred up by right wing culture warriors.
Her defense team can argue that she hasn’t been President long enough to be canned for poor job performance. They can argue Harvard is fully aware of her congressional testimony and plagiarism and yet continues to back her. So why is there a sudden change of heart? If they could somehow tie this to her being black, things would be messy. Harvard can pay her a huge amount to go away quietly.
As for why would any student support Gay after all this evidence against her, a small fraction of students support anything, even Hamas.
So that’s the reward for plagiarism and poor job performance? Sounds about right. No real consequences.
She’s not getting Stanley O’ Neal type money but she’ll probably get more than most people will ever retire on.
And I hope she does, so that in the future universities consider the true costs of their ideology-driven hiring decisions a lot more carefully.
It’s not Claudine Gay who we should expect to learn from their mistakes.
From The Harvard Gazette on September 28th. Claudine Gay seems to grasp the evils of censorship. It’s unfortunate that so many others do not.
“GAZETTE: Your scholarship has focused on the governed and how they’re affected by leadership. What lessons has that work offered you in your own leadership roles?
GAY: The biggest takeaway from my own research is just how important it is for people to feel seen and heard. Even when they disagree, it is critically important for their values, interests, and preferences to be recognized by leadership and integrated into the thinking of leaders.”
There is a good chance that during her vetting process these acts of plagiarism were brought to the board’s attention and either ignored or minimized. We will never know for sure unless this gets litigated.
At this point Dr Gay has little to loose. The board however if they were aware and now fires her for it has enormous liability and reputation risk.
This will likely never get to a courtroom for exactly this reason. The who knew what when will not reflect well on anyone involved, and that ten person board is an extremely powerful group of people who will not allow this to directly blow back to them. Dr Gay will get paid to take the hit and go away.
