Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy said that former Harvard president, Claudine Gay, who stepped down from her role amid a severe backlash over antisemitism on campus and allegations of plagiarism, had written fewer books and articles in the past two decades than he did in the past two years. He said Gay’s rise to Harvard’s presidency is due to the rise of bureaucrats over intellectuals at the top universities in the US, as well as the result of affirmative action.
Affirmative action, meant to bring in positive changes in the society, involves policies within governments and organisations that are framed to benefit groups that have been historically discriminated against. Affirmative action, also known as positive discrimination, aims to bridge gaps in employment, pay, access to education, and other hindrances.
Ramaswamy said that focussing only on race, gender and DEI (diversity, equality, inclusion) dimension is missing the deeper point. “Claudine Gay’s rise to Harvard President was no doubt in part the result of affirmative action, but the more interesting dimension is how it reflects the rise of *bureaucrats* over intellectuals at top universities. Over two decades, Gay published just 10 articles & zero books. Harvard Prof Roland Fryer published more in a single year than Gay did in her entire career (yet she tried to torch him for his non-academic failures). Heck, I’m not even an academic but in the last 2 years wrote 3 books & published more articles than Gay did in two decades.”
It is not just the intersectionality that propelled Gay to the top post in Harvard, highlighted Ramaswamy, but a deeper cultural shift that favours “bureaucrats over creators & administrators over intellectuals”.
Claudine Gay, on Tuesday, said that she would step down from her position as Harvard President, ending a six-month tenure. She had come under immense pressure from Harvard’s Jewish community as well as members of Congress over the December 5 congressional hearing. She called her decision “difficult beyond words”.
"After consultation with members of the (Harvard) Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual," she said.
In the December 5 congressional hearing, Gay declined to outrightly say that calling for genocide of Jews on Harvard's campus would violate the school's code of conduct. She later apologised for her remark in an interview with Harvard Crimson.
Moreover, a committee that investigated plagiarism allegations against her found that she had made citation errors. A university spokesperson said that Gay was planning to submit three corrections to her 1997 dissertation. She had already submitted corrections to two published articles. Her tumultuous tenure was further rocked by questions about her academic integrity.
Allegations of plagiarism against Gay were brought to the attention of the Harvard Corporation through a media request by the New York Post newspaper.
The corporation said in a statement on December 12 that its subcommittee of 11 members, and a panel of independent political scientists found that Gay's work had "a few instances of inadequate citation" upon initial review but that her work fell short of research misconduct. But subsequent allegations about her 1997 PhD dissertation led to an additional review. In that, the investigators found "duplicative language without appropriate attribution."
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