By now, everyone has a take on Harvard's President Claudine Gay.
Long story short, she said antisemitism needed "context" at a Congressional Hearing.
Uh, I live in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio and work for a school district. If I was asked by Congress to testify about my district's free speech policy, you know what I would say?
Now if you paid me a Harvard President's salary for a year, I would write a 300+ page manifesto about Beacon of Speech's free speech policy.
What's the difference? A Congressional Hearing is nothing more than a publicity stunt. Some congressperson is trying to make you look like an idiot in a soundbite. Stunningly, Claudine Gay took that bait. The President of Harvard, any Ivy League President for that matter, should have been ready for compliments from the left and live verbal fire from the right. It was arrogant that Gay thought she was smarter than a sitting Republican Representative.
I'm sure Gay could have written a nice dissertation and sounded all hoity-toity, but she should have read the room. IN CONGRESS.
Between the years 1971 and 1991, Derek Bok was the President of Harvard. According to the New York Times, when Bok retired he was "was widely praised by faculty members and other university presidents for his advocacy of liberal education, his eloquence in articulating the troubles facing American universities and his decency as a colleague."
Did Derek Bok ever testify before Congress? Yes, in 1978 he argued that the CIA was egotistical in thinking they didn't have to abide by Harvard's rules when on Campus "(the CIA) is hardly the appropriate arbiter to weigh (national security)' needs against the legitimate concerns of academic freedom,"
What would have happened if Bok had given that disasterous soundbite that's circulating on all the news channels about Israel? He would have been fired.
And I'm not saying anything against Bok specifically, I am saying that Gay embarrassed Harvard, but because she was the University's First Black President and the University's Second Woman President, the optics would have been TERRIBLE if the Board terminated her after only 6 months on the job.
Harvard doesn't want to be pressured into firing anyone, Harvard dictates what Harvard should do.
But more importantly they don't want to be seen as giving in to an anti-woke mob. Now this is where tool Jill Filipovic comes in. She is trying to spin what happened at Harvard as Gay defending free speech. Uh-
Filipovic defends the speech of the left and the speech of allies. She does not defend the concept of free speech. Literally 6 months ago, she was championing Trump "shutting up."
You read the shutting up article and think that I took Filipovic out of context? Oh the irony. I didn't use quotations in that last reference? Double Irony.
Listen, Harvard is nearly 400 years old, we shouldn't be having this argument in America.
This is just sad.