The smirking, morally obtuse, and logically deficient performance the presidents of some of America’s most prestigious universities turned in at last week’s House committee hearings has taken its toll. University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill and the chairman of the college’s board of trustees have been forced out of their roles. The walls seem to be closing in on Harvard University president Claudine Gay, too, though her defenders in academia are mounting a counterattack.
At least 570 members of the Harvard faculty signed their names to a petition released on Sunday night, branding the backlash her congressional testimony produced as a thoughtless act of unenlightened aggression. Harvard, they wrote, is obliged to “resist political pressures that are at odds with Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom.”
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