LOS ANGELES.–Shifting the blame for her Jan. 4 resignation, 54-year-old former President Claudine Gay said she was pushed out of her job for racism, not her documented plagiarism, but, more importantly, her incompetence when testifying Dec. 7 in the House Education and Work Force Committee. Chairwoman Rep, Elaine Stefanik (D-N.Y.) asked Gay whether or not calling for Jews genocide violated Harvard’s policy on bullying and harassment? “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules on bullying and harassment,” Stefanik asked Gay. Gay said “it depends on context,” raising audible gasps in the audience, realizing that Gay had probably just lost her job. Gay’s remarks were preposterous, when considering any race or gender-based epithet would result under Harvard’s Code of Conduct results in immediate disciplinary action, including expulsion.
Gay apologized profusely in an open letter in the Harvard Crimson, the school’s daily newspaper, clarifying her position on threats of genocide toward Jews, a reference to the Nazi Holocaust that slaughtered 6 million Jews during Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror over Germany. Because the Oct. 7 Israeli-Hamas War, various left-wing groups have had a field day targeting Jews, as if they have anything to do with Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre that killed some 1,200 Israelis, taking 240 more hostage. Various pro-Palestinian Arab groups target American Jews as if they’re responsible for Israeli government policies. Arab and Palestinian groups don’t accept that Jews have been part of American society since colonial days, an intergral part of American culture. Gay should certainly know that American Jews were part of Harvard’s faculty, student body and administration.
Gay couldn’t say to Stefanik that Harvard’s Code of Conduct does not permit threats against any group, whether religious or political, yet Gay told Stefanik when it came to Jews, “it depends on context.” African Americans are especially tone deaf when it comes to Jews, routinely preaching anti-Semitism in Black Christian and Muslim churches. Listening to sermons by Chicago’s Rev. Jeremiah Wright or Nation of Islam’s Rev. Louis Farrakhan show that Jews are blamed as exploiting Black people, when, in fact, they were in the forefront of the Civil Rights movement. Whether in academia, medicine, law, accounting, the arts, finance and industry Jews have been in the forefront of American success. While fingered as a minority group by certain African Americans, Jews in fact are not viewed as a distinguishable minority, ethnic or racial group by the U.S. government.
When many African Americans talk about Jews, they incorrectly indentify them as a separate ethnic minority, even though the government doesn’t categorize them as Black, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, etc. When questioned by Stefanik, Jews came up because pro-Palestinian groups target American Jews as if they’re living in the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem or the West Bank, prime targets for terrorist groups like Hamas seeking to reclaim land lost during Israel’s war of independence and declaration of statehood. Arabs living in the Holy Land had no problem living under Ottoman Empire or British rule for over 500 years. But once Jews received the British Mandate of Palestine in 1948, Arabs have been in continuous war since recognized by the U.N. as a sovereign state in 1949.
Gay’s inability to tell Stefanik that of course Harvard’s Code of Conduct does not accept calling for the genocide of Jews or any other group led to her Jan. 5 resignation. “She was targeted primarily due to her race, but as part of the larger extremist, right-wing push to reverse social progress under the banner of anti-wokeness,” said Lily Zheng, a diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI] lobbyist and author of “DEI Deconstructed.” Zheng gives whatever validity to the affirmative action movement a black eye by pretending that Gay lost her job due to racism. Gay lost her job because of plagiarism and incompetence, unable to represent the university without embarrassment. “She is talking about having a target on her back for being a Black woman. The first in Harvard’s history. That’s essentially what I am reading, when I see her words racial animus,” Zheng said.
Black rights advocates like Zheng or Boston University Prof. Ibrahim X. Kendi, author of “How to become an anti-racist,” see all white people as racists, because they’re white, not because of any specific racist behavior. When Gay told Stefanik “it depends on context,” when it comes to threatening Jews with genocide, it revealed her own personal bias toward Jews, some of Harvard’s most distinguished undergraduate and graduate schools faculty and donors to the university. Gay demonstrated for all to see she doesn’t understand that hate speech doesn’t only apply to Blacks and the LGBT community. When it came to Gay’s numerous examples of plagiarism, it was just too much to see her continue as Harvard president. Zheng can pull the race card all she wants but she discredits the DEI movement as just a self-serving attempt to gain preferential treatment without real merit.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
