Harvard has often commanded outsized interest and curiosity from people across the United States and the world, including from many of us who never attended college there or lack direct ties to it. The reason was clear and uncontested for many decades: Harvard stood as one of America's great institutions, a molder of many of the thinkers, leaders, artists and experts who shaped societies and global affairs. In more recent years, the interest in Harvard has become more complicated, and even problematized, as the campus has become a high-profile setting to watch some of society's thorniest debates and tensions play out — a source of object lessons for some and a high-profile target for others. So it has been in recent months with arguments over the Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza, campus antisemitism, the principles and limits of free speech and, more recently, the leadership and record of its president, Claudine Gay, who resigned Tuesday facing fresh allegations of plagiarism in her academic work. On Wednesday evening, Times Opinion published a guest essay by Gay in which she laid out her most detailed account yet of her experiences since the Oct. 7 attacks — admitting fault and shortcomings in her reaction to the attacks, and saying she "fell into a well-laid trap" set by Republicans at a House hearing on antisemitism last month. She also acknowledged the accusations against her scholarly work. But the bulk of the essay — and what interested us most and led to our decision to publish it — was her argument that the criticism of her was not about one school, one leader or her past work, but "a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society." As Opinion editor, I rarely express my own views publicly on guest essays we publish, but here it's worth saying that, in the current conversation around Harvard, I've been more drawn to arguments made by others. Distance from a controversy can often offer a broader view and nuance, one of the reasons I'm circumspect about the personal essay as a genre. So I'd recommend reading Gay's essay alongside John McWhorter's call in December that she resign, Michelle Goldberg's effort to break down what actually happened in those congressional hearings, or Bret Stephens's column on the impact of social engineering on free thought. I'd also consider Ross Douthat's thoughts on why Harvard let her go. "The Ivy League believes in its progressive doctrines, but not as much as it believes in its own indispensability, its permanent role as an incubator of privilege and influence," Douthat writes.
Still, I'd like to offer Gay the final word because, as we head into 2024, there's no denying this particularly resonant insight from her essay: "At tense moments, every one of us must be more skeptical than ever of the loudest and most extreme voices in our culture, however well organized or well connected they might be." Read our coverage:
Here's what we're focusing on today:
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Thursday, January 4, 2024
Opinion Today: Claudine Gay, and others, on the meaning of her resignation
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