Claudine Gay's Dishonorable Discharge
with John McWhorter
Weeks after former Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation, the debate is still raging as to what really happened. I’ve argued from the beginning that, regardless of the motivations of figures like Bill Ackman and Christopher Rufo, who spearheaded the campaign against her, the plagiarism charges were serious enough on their own to merit her removal. Yes, as John McWhorter says in this clip, there is a difference between stealing an idea and lifting some boilerplate text from a colleague’s article. Gay seems to have been guilty of the latter but not the former. Perhaps that’s not the greatest sin. But it is a sin nonetheless, and the many, many instances of it in her published record reflect the, in my view, shallowness of her scholarship. Claudine Gay is not the kind of heavy hitter you would expect to serve in her position.
We should remember that that position was not just “President of Harvard University.” She was the first black woman to serve in the role, and in fact the first black person to serve in the role, period. There was a time when the ascension of a black person to a position that carries not only great responsibility but great symbolic significance virtually guaranteed that the candidate was eminently qualified for the job. Elevating an unqualified candidate would have been viewed as a betrayal of the very progress it was meant to usher in. If it could be shown that the candidate did not have the qualifications of her predecessors, the appointment would be viewed as an empty political gesture rather than a demonstration that, in this case, there are black Americans who are every bit as a worthy of the big job as their white predecessors.
Consider the case of Drew Gilpin Faust, who was the first woman to serve as Harvard’s president. Whatever you think of her tenure in that role, you can’t argue with her CV, which is impressive by any standard. So when the Harvard Corporation decided, as they surely did decide, that it was a time for a black woman to serve as president, why didn’t they seek out a candidate who was similarly distinguished? My hypothesis is that they thought her ability to measure up to her colleagues was less important than her stance on DEI, the color of her skin, and her gender.
Her scholarly qualifications are important, and now we’re seeing why. Had Gay possessed the qualifications of her most distinguished predecessors, I doubt the attempt to unseat her would have worked. And what’s more, I (and many others like me) might have been more willing to defend her. But her habitual plagiarism has rendered that position untenable. While I feel uneasy about a future in which political activists regularly target university presidents whose policies they dislike, I’m more worried about a future in which elite institutions like Harvard blithely trade their standards for a mess of pottage.
Preorder my memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative, wherever you get your books.
GLENN LOURY: You mentioned former President of Harvard Claudine Gay. What do you make of some of the reaction? You wrote about this, didn't you? Didn't you have a piece in the Times where you said, “Don't blame it on racism” or something like that? Of course, you can say what you said. But there've been other reactions. Did you know that Al Sharpton was out there picketing the offices of Bill Ackman, a wealthy financier who's a Harvard alum and had been quite active in criticizing President Gay and calling for a resignation on the plagiarism issue? He was picketing his offices, man. Anyway, any comment?
JOHN MCWHORTER: Yeah. This one comes down to DEI and also some language issues. Because people are wondering why pick on that one of the three presidents? Why do you have to hound her, or find out about this petty plagiarism and hound her out of the office? Why are you going after her?
And a lot of people are thinking it's because she's black, which is a great movie. But no, it isn't that. It's that Ackman and [Christopher] Rufo and [Christopher] Brunet and the others were against diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. And there's certain people, I'm not going to name one of them, but there are certain people where they try to pull this, “Are you against diversity? Are you against equity? Are you against inclusion? Because if you are, you're a racist. And therefore, Claudine Gay was damaged by race.” No. Words’ meanings evolve, and diversity, equity, and inclusion do not exist in their dictionary meanings when it comes to what has passed for DEI in many places.
And Glenn, you have illustrated this brilliantly in having Tabia Lee on this show. If anybody wants to say there's something unique about De Anza [College], you better prove it. You better put up or shut up. It wasn't unique to De Anza. That was a general phenomenon about DEI these days.
And if you're against DEI, it doesn't mean you're a racist. Frankly, it could mean that you are working for your race to be against all of this shit. If you don't like what Tabia Lee was describing—and she is a black woman and a black-identified woman—if you don't like what she was decrying ...
Just remind us, briefly.
Tabia Lee was at De Anza College, and she was brought on as the head of their DEI. And she only lasted for a short time. She was ejected because she believed in actual diversity, equity, and inclusion and found that she was expected to preside over this business of setting black and white people, especially, against each other, working on the basis of the conception of intersectionality, where white people are on top and everybody else is defined by their battle against this hegemony from whites. There was antisemitism that was threaded throughout all of this and a sense that qualifications shouldn't matter when it comes to whether black and brown people get places and things.
And because she wouldn't agree with it, she was ejected. And she's a black woman. That's DEI. If you're against that, whatever you have to say about the motives of Christopher Rufo—I don't know him—if he's on this Ahab-like quest to battle DEI, it doesn't make him a racist. It's simplistic to think so. But that's what happened when Claudine Gay had to step down. And unfortunately, she seems to think that her color was not just one thing, but central in why she lost her job. And I think it's an empirically flawed analysis.
A certain kind of person says race must've had something to do with it. But I want to ask you why. I know you're supposed to say that, or you feel like that's the way it is. But why? Explain exactly why it had something to do with it. DEI is not a good thing in all ways. Frankly, I think the way it's been, especially since 2020, it's a scourge. And I'm saying that pro-blackly.
An ironic thought occurred to me just as you were speaking, which is that if Claudine Gay were really, on your argument, interested in promoting the well-being of African Americans broadly understood, she should have written a piece for the New York Times in which she made no reference whatsoever to her own race. She should have followed [Martin Luther] King's dictum, the content of my character, and should have basically said, “I apologize. I messed up, and the consequences have brought themselves home to me, and I accept that as appropriate to the circumstance. Let's move on.”
This is something that I hesitated to write, because there's a part of me that doesn't want to dogpile too much on her for various reasons. But it's not that the plagiarism she did was so morally egregious. It wasn't about stealing ideas. It was about stealing text blocks of boilerplate and throat clearings. There is a difference. In another language, there might be two words. One of them refers to what she did, and then one of them refers to putting forth other people's ideas as your own.
We all know that she's thinking, “It's so petty. I didn't do anything really wrong.” And there's a point there. But the form of it, the fact that Harvard is also so strict about plagiarism—and plagiarism as the English language happens to have it—means that in a situation like that, she's supposed to fall on her sword. There's an honor, there's a graciousness involved where, she's supposed to say, at home over dinner, “What I did wasn't really that bad.” But she's supposed to get up in front of the public and say, “The form of this is such that I must offer my resignation. I'm sorry for any inconvenience that I've caused.”
That's what one does. I think Claudine Gay and her friends think that, because she's black, you get a pass on that. You don't have to fall on your sword. You don't have to be gracious. You don't have to follow the form, because your blackness is so important to the office that you should be allowed to stay where you are. I disagree. Dr. King would as well.
See I have different read on it, but I hear you. And I like the thought of, it's a kind of duty. It's honorable within the context of the office and the role. And it's accepting certain exigencies. However unfair this may be, you don't mention unfairness in your resignation letter. You accept your fate. You do fall on your sword, like the general after the battle has been lost. And in doing so, you honor the traditions that you are the temporary custodian of. Something like that.
But here's where I want to disagree, because I think it relates to DEI in a much more fundamental way. And I said this last time we talked about this: This is corruption, man. Why do I think the plagiarism is important? I accept your characterization. Not really stealing and presenting as your own someone else's ideas, more of a use of boilerplate language that you just borrowed in whole from another source. And you oughtn't to have done that or ought to have acknowledged it. But nevertheless, I accept that distinction.
But I'm talking about the quality of mind of the person who conducts their professional life in this way. Because there wasn't just one instance. There were dozens upon dozens of instances. So this was a modus operandi. This was a way of doing business. I'm saying, who is this person? Who is this person intellectually? This is what I'm saying. And so a kind of tinny sound is coming out of this, a kind of thinness is emanating from this. And that they are put in the position of presiding over this institution and this heritage and yet are, when you scratch it, there's an emperor has no clothes or there's almost a kind of Wizard of Oz kind of feel to it. Tin Man.
I don't mean any disrespect. I'm trying to give voice to an idea. There was not the timbre, there was not the resonance, there was not the depth, there was not the gravitas, there was not the solidity, there was not the profundity. There was a functionary whose race had an awful lot to do with the fact that she ascended to the position to which she had ascended.
This is corruption. This is losing your way. Not as an individual person, but as an institution and as a program of action. The DEI movement are hoist on their own petard here, I repeat. And I hope they lose. I hope merit—please don't make me apologize for using that fucking word! Merit. When you're in the presence of greatness, you know it. That's what Harvard should aspire to. That's what Harvard should embody. That's what Harvard should honor. That's the message that Harvard should send to the world. She was exactly the opposite of that.
It's so depressing, though, that the people who are going to hear you, the ones who are gracious enough to even listen from “the other side,” and all they can feel, all they hear, all they can think. is, “No, what was important was not her merit based on those 'white standards,' but that she was in her position and she was going to fight for diversity, equity, and inclusion in terms of representation on the faculty and the administration.” And in terms of what is recognized, what is studied, what is thought about, what is redressed, in terms of particularly black history—that's also DEI. And the idea is that her having been there to represent and lead, that was more important than any questions of relative merit. They think it's good that she was brought in as a black face to represent blackness. These people depress me.
This is a clip from Monday’s episode of The Glenn Show. To get early access to full episodes, as well as an ad-free podcast feed, Q&As, and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.
A tip of the cap to John for his very fair take on Claudine Gay.
Using someone else’s “boilerplate” is still theft. They wrote it. Gay pickpocketed it. The original author had to labor to write it. Gay did not. And did she make sure the original authors were credited fully?