So now it’s one president down, no more to go.
The decision by Harvard pooh-bahs to keep Claudine Gay was predictable but still disappointing.
It sucks some of the air out of calls for a thorough review of how the far left has hijacked American higher education and turned campuses into political indoctrination factories rife with antisemitism.
Worse, the decision to retain Gay in the face of a boisterous campaign to get her fired will be interpreted by other colleges as a sign it’s safe to return to business as usual.
So once again, moral clarity is banned at what used to be called citadels of learning.
Why no boot?
The odds were always slim that the same Harvard board that gave Gay the job in July would give her the boot now.
Showing her the door would reflect badly on them and their judgment, so she and they had a mutual interest in saving her.
Race also had to be a factor, which was important in her getting the job in the first place.
She became Harvard’s first black president, a much-celebrated move in some quarters that came just before the Supreme Court rejected the school’s use of racial preferences in student admissions.
Dumping her so quickly would create problems if she filed a lawsuit claiming discrimination.
That possibility was implicit in the letter signed by 80 black faculty members that called attacks on Gay “specious and politically motivated.”
And yet, for all its status quo affirmation, the Tuesday statement announcing Harvard’s decision was hardly a ringing endorsement of her leadership.
It amounted to a public scolding that faulted both her initial reaction to the Hamas terror attack and her disastrous congressional testimony at which she revealed a sickening tolerance for antisemitism as long as it wasn’t violent.
Moreover, in addressing for the first time the plagiarism charges against Gay, the board found her guilty in several instances, albeit of transgressions it said were minor and did not violate Harvard’s standards.
The result leaves a weak, wounded president who will be on thin ice with just about everyone, especially critics.
And the donor revolt that followed her conduct and cost Harvard an estimated $1 billion so far is not likely to be reversed and might even spread.
Some big contributors, such as hedge funder Bill Ackman, may never come back, while others will want to see proof that Gay is capable of making the changes the board statement outlined.
A long-time significant donor who suspended the programs she sponsors told me she thought the board made a big mistake and that the decision to keep Gay “just hardens my resolve” not to resume giving.
Misleading model
Beyond Harvard, Gay’s reprieve likely will be turned into a misleading model by other schools facing calls for new leadership.
They now have a template for conceding mistakes and denouncing antisemitism, then moving on as if they’ve solved the problem.
In that case, Liz Magill, booted from the president’s perch at Penn for conduct not much different from Gay’s, may be the lone leader to pay the ultimate price.
Sally Kornbluth, the president of MIT, and the third member of the panel that embarrassed itself before Congress, already got a vote of confidence from her trustees.
The lack of consequences for two out of the three is dispiriting because their evasive testimonies, coming in the midst of the odious support for Hamas and the shocking wave of antisemitism, revealed the depravity of the woke culture on their campuses and their unwillingness to challenge it.
The decades-long prevalence of trigger warnings and demands for safe spaces, all while allowing the privileged snowflakes a hecklers’ veto when conservative speakers dare to show up, suddenly seems almost quaint.
In fact, those attacks on both tradition and culture served as something akin to gateway drugs that inevitably lead to the harder stuff.
The more recent fixation on erasing American history and obsessions with radical race and gender politics have pushed elite campuses further out of the mainstream of society and make it seem as if they exist on another planet.
Consider that the Brown University student newspaper reported last summer on a survey finding that 38% of students there identify as gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, queer, pansexual, asexual or just “questioning.”
That would be five times the national rate, the paper said, and more than double the number of Brown students who described themselves that way in 2010.
Something, somewhere has snapped and there’s no sign it is being repaired.
Indeed, there is little evidence that most administrators are even alarmed about the causes or consequences of such unprecedented developments.
This mass alienation from American society and religious traditions, along with an ignorance of history, has not spared Israel.
Claims that it is a “colonial” power and operates an “apartheid” legal system are flat-out false but resonate with many young people, including some Jews, because it fits neatly into their worldview that everyone is either an oppressor or oppressed.
That simplistic calculus leads to the absurd claims that Hamas’ brutality, including rape, kidnapping and child murder, are Israel’s fault because it is the oppressor.
Absolving killers of any agency has no foundation in any religious, ethical or moral code but it’s now widespread among the supposed best and brightest.
It is no coincidence that this campus madness comes at a time when administrators have fallen for another ignorant claim — that academic merit is inherently racist.
The elimination of standardized testing for most college admissions removes an imperfect but useful tool for comparing student qualifications.
Isn’t the real world
Faculty compound the blindness by handing out A’s as if they are candy.
A Yale study found that 79% of the grades students got there last year were A’s or A-minuses, a 20% increase over a decade.
So everybody is special and a generation that grew up getting participation trophies now feels entitled to get them throughout life.
Who is going to tell them that’s not how the real world works?
Parents used to do that, and so did colleges and employers.
But since most adults are afraid to say no these days, lest they get lectured or beat up, society itself is changing to accommodate the most entitled generation.
The lone consolation is that it will never be confused with the greatest generation.
Breaking up a party
With an impending House vote to formalize the GOP impeachment inquiry of President Biden, it’s worth reviewing recent cases to see how Democrats and Republicans score on party allegiance.
On the measure to expel GOP Rep. George Santos, 105 Republicans joined 206 Dems in voting yes, making Santos only the sixth member ever to get the boot.
On the measure to censure Dem Rep. Jamaal Bowman for falsely pulling a fire alarm, just three Dems joined 211 Republicans in voting yes.
The crossover differences reflect a pattern worth remembering: Democrats stick together, while Republicans stick it to each other.
