The Corner

Politics & Policy

Harvard Plays Dirty

Then-incoming President of Harvard University and current Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Claudine Gay listens during Harvard University’s 372nd commencement exercises in Cambridge, Mass., May 25, 2023. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Harvard’s embarrassing president Claudine Gay has inadvertently exposed a lot about the deterioration of higher education. Now we learn more about Harvard itself; namely, its nasty effort at suppressing the investigation into her plagiarism.

As we read on Powerline, the university got an attack-dog type law firm to fire off a letter to the New York Post, threatening it with a lawsuit unless it dropped the story. Scott Johnson writes:

Students of ancient history may recall that Harvard President Claudine Gay’s plagiarism scandal began with a late October inquiry by the New York Post to Gay and Harvard specifying incidents of what we have come to know as “inadequate citation” in Gay’s work. The Post submitted its inquiry and awaited their response. Harvard deceitfully asked the Post for more time to respond. The response was a 15-page letter from the high-powered Clare Locke firm threatening the Post with a lawsuit.

It’s easy to see where students get the idea that the way to deal with people and ideas you don’t like is to resort to threats and “cancellation.”

There’s much more in the Powerline post. I suggest reading the whole thing.

George Leef is the the director of editorial content at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. He is the author of The Awakening of Jennifer Van Arsdale: A Political Fable for Our Time.
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