The fall of Harvard President Claudine Gay is not exactly the triumph we were looking for.
Her resignation letter focused on the recent congressional hearings in which she found herself in the uncomfortable position of selectively defending free speech against a Republican politician slinging charges of “genocide” and “racism.”
It was all very . . . the opposite . . .
And that is the most important context. Her letter’s evasion of discreditable cases of academic plagiarism — at Harvard, no less! — while not honorable, was at least politically apt. One administrator’s fraudulent academic history is no match for the issue of freedom of speech.
Which, as a legal matter, is as Ms. Gay said it was, a matter of context. You have the right to advocate genocide or say racist things on your property or on hired property. You do not have the right to shout such things just anywhere.
But college campuses aren’t just anywhere. They are allegedly places for intellectual debate. The practice of academic freedom means that the property and customs of universities and institutions of higher learning allow differing opinions to be aired.
In classrooms; in papers; in auditoriums.
Still, these student academic free-speech norms don’t extend anywhere and everywhere, in all campus contexts. No student may hide behind “free speech” or “academic freedom” to corner and scream hatred of Israel at every Jew on the quad. That’s where Ms. Gay’s answers in congressional hearings were so unsatisfactory. Especially since Harvard and other major higher education institutions have been disallowing some speech from academic contexts and celebrating other quite threatening speech in the university’s public places.
Gay’s resignation reminds us of Al Capone’s imprisonment for tax evasion: a work-around at best. The underlying issues remain unresolved.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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4 replies on “The Resignation”
It’s not much of a punishment. Gay is a tenured professor and will continue to ‘teach’ at Harvard. News reports say she won’t even face a pay cut. She will continue to receive the presidential salary. The salary level is outrageous. It’s time for the federal government to stop doing business with this ‘private’ company. That means no more student loans, no research grants, no nothing from taxpayers.
Decades ago, when I was an undergraduate, I came to believe that college was not so much about developing human capital as it was about social control.
Someone might reasonably have argued then against my belief. Someone might reasonably argue now about whether I had then been right.
But certainly now American colleges and universities are in the hands of people who have subverted both the development of human capital and the humanistic project. The personal autonomy of all students has been undermined; few can ever earn enough actually to recover the pecuniary costs of their time in college, and they have not advanced as critical thinkers. Students who would have become the more able defenders of a liberal order have been hobbled. A large group of students have been weaponized, imagining themselves to be warriors for eutopia, but really goons for a grim, grey neo-feudalism.
Point of fact: She resigned her position as president, but is still employed by Harvard.
Makes me glad I avoided the college experience altogether. Going straight into the workforce made me learn to think and reason for myself. Example: Genocide against any people for any reason is unacceptable. Anyone with half a brain and without a bogus Harvard degree knows that.