Harvard's Plagiarizing President Resigns. Media Say Racism Made Her Do It.

Claudine Gay announced her resignation as the president of Harvard University on Tuesday after a series of academic and leadership debacles. For much of the news media, however, Gay’s resignation was about something else: right-wing racism.

The Washington Free Beacon and others in recent weeks revealed nearly 50 allegations of plagiarism against Gay, implicating half of her academic work, starting with the acknowledgments of her 1997 Harvard dissertation. The plagiarism scandal followed Gay’s Dec. 5 congressional testimony, during which she struggled to defend her disastrous response to an outbreak of anti-Semitism on campus after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist rampage in Israel. Asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews constituted harassment at Harvard, Gay told lawmakers, “it depends on the context.”

“Amidst all of this, 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,” Gay wrote in her resignation letter.

News outlets and journalists took it from there. Gay’s scandals were not really about what they were about, explained the likes of the New York Times, Politico, and CNN.

The Times can’t admit that Gay’s own academic sins are what brought her down. Incredible. pic.twitter.com/dgF96bBcEK

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 3, 2024

Nightly reports on the right’s coordinated campaign that helped engineer the departure of the head of the most influential university in the world https://t.co/ZhoFLVjh51

— POLITICO (@politico) January 3, 2024

Bonkers explanation from CNN reporter Matt Egan on the Harvard plagiarism scandal:

“We should note that Claudine Gay has not been accused of stealing anyone’s ideas in any of her writings. She has been accused of sort of more like copying other peoples writings without… pic.twitter.com/ONArO75NLE

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 2, 2024

“Harvard Governing Board, Activists Say Former President was a Victim of Racism,” blared a Politico headline.

MSNBC host Al Sharpton told CNN Gay’s resignation “is an attack on every Black woman in this country who’s put a crack in the glass ceiling.”

NBC News convened a panel to determine whether Gay’s resignation was about “student safety, plagiarism, or racism.” According to MSNBC’s Symone Sanders-Townsend, “every black professional” knew the answer.

WATCH: Fmr. Harvard Pres. “Gay’s testimony was the worst … I’ve seen in a congressional testimony,” @DougHeye says after her resignation.@SymoneDSanders: “It was horrific. … [But] every Black professional … [can] say, ‘It looks like she was targeted.'” pic.twitter.com/8Nd1iYR8d9

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 3, 2024

New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones of the “1619 Project” fame said: “Racial justice programs are under attack. Black women will be made to pay.”

Let’s be real. This is an extension of what happened to me at UNC, and it is a glimpse into the future to come. Academic freedom is under attack. Racial justice programs are under attack. Black women will be made to pay. Our so-called allies too often lack any real courage.

— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) January 2, 2024

New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay told MSNBC viewers, “you can hear and see the racism in the attacks.”

NYT’s @MaraGay on Claudine Gay resigning: “This is really an attack on academic freedom … This is an attack on diversity. This is an attack on multiculturalism, & … I don’t have to say that they’re racist, because you can hear and see the racism in the attacks” pic.twitter.com/vLFQqtesqG

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 3, 2024

The Associated Press asserted that conservative activist Christopher Rufo, in celebrating having “SCALPED” Claudine Gay with his reporting on the plagiarism allegations against her, was “invoking a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans.” The AP later updated the text to clarify that “some tribes” also scalped their enemies.

This isn’t parody https://t.co/LHsVGT0SUY pic.twitter.com/WZKlMVsFXu

— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) January 3, 2024

NBC News’s Ben Collins, a Free Beacon Man of the Year, was indignant that the Times had covered Gay’s scandals, accusing the paper of having “emboldened and platformed a racist harassment campaign.”

NBC disinfo dude Ben Collins figured out what happened with Claudine Gay and Chris Rufo (and the New York Times?)… via his Threads account:

“Many people are saying the New York Times emboldened and platformed a racist harassment campaign by a known ratfucker who laid out his… pic.twitter.com/aL9oLGWGVl

— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) January 3, 2024

Forbes contributor and DEI consultant Janice Gassam Asare argued: “No amount of wealth, achievements, accolades, or notoriety will offer safety and protection in an anti-black world.”

You just can’t make it up. pic.twitter.com/9LLPsb1ZpC

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 3, 2024

Ibram X. Kendi, an Atlantic contributor and antiracism guru, suggested concerns about Gay’s misconduct were simply an excuse for “a racist mob” to attack a black person.

When a racist mob attacks a Black person, it finds a seemingly legitimate reason for the attack that allows for it to accrue popular support and credibility, and which allows the growing mob to deny they are attacking the person in this way because the person is Black. 1/4

— Ibram X. Kendi (@ibramxk) January 2, 2024

Natasha Alford of the Grio warned, “What happened to Claudine Gay is a playbook they will follow again and again.”

What happened to Claudine Gay is a playbook they will follow again and again. They will do whatever it takes to undermine, humiliate and unseat Black people in positions of power they don’t want there.

— Natasha S. Alford (@NatashaSAlford) January 2, 2024

Meanwhile, Gay still has a job as a political science professor at Harvard, where she is expected to continue making about $1 million a year.