On 03 Jan 2024, Rocky <elonx@protonmail.com> posted some
news:un4022$38iol$2@dont-email.me:

> Claudine Gay is just another smelly turd in the black cat box. Empty
> it and move on.

Harvard President Claudine Gay announced Tuesday she is stepping down
just six months into her presidency amid a firestorm of controversy at
the university.

�It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to
share that I will be stepping down as president,� Gay wrote in a letter
to the Harvard community. �After consultation with members of the
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.�

Gay did not say when she plans to formally step down but she described
the decision as �difficult beyond words.�

Gay�s resignation comes amid a period of extreme turmoil at one of
America�s most prestigious universities and marks the end of the
presidency of the first Black president and second woman in Harvard�s
nearly 400-year history. The controversy swirling around Harvard drew in
CEOs, billionaires, powerful donors and even leaders of Congress.

Gay made the decision to step down as Harvard�s president late last
week, a person close to Gay told CNN.

That timing indicates Gay was already planning to resign before new
plagiarism allegations emerged that were first reported by the
Washington Free Beacon on Monday.

Gay acknowledged the short length of her tenure, writing: �When my brief
presidency is remembered, I hope it will be seen as a moment of
reawakening to the importance of striving to find our common humanity �
and of not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital
process of education,� Gay said.

She also noted that �it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my
commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor � two
bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am � and frightening to be
subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.�

In a letter Tuesday, the Harvard Corporation defended Gay and said they
accepted her resignation �with sorrow.� The Corporation, which is the
university�s governing body, said she showed �remarkable resilience in
the face of deeply personal and sustained attacks.�

�While some of this has played out in the public domain, much of it has
taken the form of repugnant and in some cases racist vitriol directed at
her through disgraceful emails and phone calls. We condemn such attacks
in the strongest possible terms,� the letter read.

Controversy on campus and across the country
Gay was undone in part by an ongoing plagiarism scandal and a disastrous
congressional hearing last month in which she and other university
presidents failed to explicitly say calls for genocide of Jewish people
constituted bullying and harassment on campus.

Tensions have surged on some college campuses following the October 7
terror attacks by Hamas against Israel. There have been hundreds of
protests and counterprotests on college campuses, with some of them
turning violent.

The faces and names of some students allegedly linked to anti-Israel
statements were displayed on mobile billboards near the campuses of both
Harvard and Columbia. Another Ivy League school, the University of
Pennsylvania, alerted the FBI to violent antisemitic threats made
against some faculty members.

Separately, Gay had drawn widespread criticism after accusations of
plagiarism emerged, including multiple instances of missing quotation
marks and citations. Harvard recently announced Gay planned to submit
corrections to her 1997 PhD dissertation to correct instances of
�inadequate citation,� adding to the ones she issued earlier to a pair
of scholarly articles she wrote in the 2000s.

Notably, the university called those corrections �regrettable,� but
found they did not meet the punishable threshold of research misconduct.

Plagiarism allegations
CNN spoke with two plagiarism experts about new allegations of
plagiarism against Gay, as first reported by the conservative
publication, the Washington Free Beacon.

Both said elements of Gay�s 2001 article, �The Effect of Minority
Districts and Minority Representation on Political Participation in
California,� constituted plagiarism.

Several sentences from scholar David T. Canon�s 1999 book appear in
Gay�s article. But Gay failed to use quotation marks or cite the work
in two passages. His end notes are almost verbatim in her footnotes.

Canon told CNN on Tuesday: �I am not at all concerned about the passages
in the Free Beacon article concerning my work. Both Dr. Gay and I are
defining basic terms. Good definitions of these terms would have to use
similar language or they would not be accurate. This isn�t even close to
an example of academic plagiarism.�

But experts noted that the feelings of the author are not a factor when
assessing a case of potential plagiarism.

Jonathan Bailey, a plagiarism and copyright consultant who runs the site
Plagiarism Today, told CNN Gay�s resignation was �likely the best thing
she could do for her and the school.�

�The plagiarism scandals have become a tremendous distraction for both
her and the school. While another researcher with a similar pattern of
issues would likely not be forced to resign or face termination, she is
both the president of Harvard and the center of a very politically
charged story. Her situation is unique,� he said.

Michael Dougherty, a professor of philosophy at Ohio Dominican
University who has written two books on plagiarism, told CNN over email,
�The problem here is that readers of Gay�s text cannot, from the text
itself, tell whose voice is speaking in the text,� he said.

He added that academics and students are obligated to write their own
sentences and give credit when words originate with someone else, using
quotation marks, footnotes in the right place, block quotes, and the
like.

�The apparent failure to use quotation marks means that David Canon�s
authorship over these words is suppressed, even though Canon is
mentioned elsewhere,� he said.

Interim president selected
Alan M. Garber, who currently serves as provost and chief academic
officer at Harvard, will step in as interim president until the school
finds a new leader, the Harvard Corporation announced in a letter on
Tuesday.

�We are fortunate to have someone of Alan�s broad and deep experience,
incisive judgment, collaborative style, and extraordinary institutional
knowledge to carry forward key priorities and to guide the university
through this interim period,� the corporation said.

The Corporation said the search for a new president would �begin in due
course,� but did not specify an exact timeline.

Gay said in her letter she would return to a faculty position �and to
the scholarship and teaching that are the lifeblood of what we do.�

A spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/02/business/claudine-gay-harvard-president-re
signs/index.html