It’s a shame that success for Black women too often coincides with such hatred and vitriol. It’s saddening that her tenure was short-lived, but just knowing that she became head of the institution gave many Black women hope, including myself. I fully agree with your last sentence.
In some of my other work, I write about how we are going to have to fight to get and keep these roles. We've seen how these people operate, we just have to become more strategic at beating them at their own game. At the end of the day, they will lose - the world is changing and they are not going to be able to stop that.
Truly sucks. Makes me very sad. There was a nice piece in the New Yorker about how she truly is devoted to D&I and making sure everyone feels like they belong.
Yes, she was devoted to making everyone feel included, to making everyone belong. That's the only way we can overcome the challenges the world faces. She is what future leadership on this planet should/will look like.
I’m glad you commented on this. Well of course she took the job! A pinnacle of achievement..and a shame that the Middle East situation which challenged others and brought down not just her ..I thought with board support she might survive it, but conservative racists weren’t going to let it go..one can only take so much abuse. A shame. But no shame on her.
I wasn't surprised at how fast they came for her. She represented everything they despised and they couldn't stand seeing her in such a powerful position. But we now know their tactics, and we should learn how to defeat them at their game. I don't think every single billionaire in the world is racist and against DEI - we need to find the ones that aren't so that we can be better prepared to win the next battle. I foresee that there will be many more on the horizon unfortunately.
I've hesitated to respond to this, because I'm not confident I'll make my points well, but here goes my best effort. Regardless of how this is perceived, this column has made me think, and examine my own thoughts (as do all of your columns.)
I agree completely with all you wrote about Dr. Gay. I'm not qualified to say whether her citation errors rise to the level of plagiarism, so I'll fall back on a position where if she would support the expulsion of a student for a similar failure, then she should hold herself to that standard, because she IS an accomplished academic, and administrator.
What bothered me most about Dr. Gay, and Drs. Magill (Penn) & Kornbluth (MIT) is that they all should have stated that calls for genocide (of any group) would go beyond the bounds of free speech and codes of conduct at the universities.
They, and their senior staff had to have known that the GOP members were going to be hostile, and would try to pin them down into sound bites that would could be used against them. They seemed to be inadequately prepared. All of the presidents, and their staffs, should have gamed the situation, known that they were going to be put on the spot, and be ready to defuse the bombshells that the GOP members of the committee were going to throw.
Well, there it is. I'll accept any criticism anyone has to make.
I agree with the points that you have made. All the presidents should have strongly condemned the calls for genocide. They were unprepared and in their "Ivory Tower" of academia.
It’s truly heartbreaking that black people are still experiencing racism in cooperate world. I thought her resignation letter was written gracefully and professionally. I wish her all the best. She has paved the way for the future generation.
Yes, she clearly showed that it is possible to make it to the top. When you get there however you have to be a perfect human being and I think that is an impossible thing to ask of anyone.
"So why did she take the job anyway?" Because marginalized people need to occupy space! And because she was more than qualified for the job. I was thrilled when she got the job. I'm sickened to learn that Dr. Gay was ultimately made to resign. It bodes poorly for so many.
Would a white person have to suffer through the same thing as Gay did if they somehow became President of a traditionally Black school and damaged the school's reputation in public by accident? I doubt it.
The stepping into a job that pisses someone off is an act of courage and far sightedness that may only help future generations, even as it crushes spirits, and causes huge anxiety, and worse. It is one small step...as the saying goes, and the world, one day, may breathe a silent “thank you”.
I live in Boston, and Harvard has a large number of Jewish students and alumni groups. They started calling for her resignation before the plagiarism allegations appeared. Because they were afraid to go to a university where the head of the college was unsure if the calls for genocide of them as a people could be considered a bad thing.
Can we all agree that calling for the genocide of Jews is a bad thing always. Because if we cannot, then we can not continue this conversation. Genocide is bad in all forms
Having a leader who will not say that, while people are walking around your campus calling for the genocide of Jews. to the grandchildren of the Holocaust, well how would that make you feel? The students asked for additional security and were told to pay for it themselves. These stories can all be found in the local newspaper The Boston Globe.
For Harvard, it was just one final thing, with the promise of more to come, a mistake that should not have happened. I just want my friends to be safe in their dorms.
Calling for the genocide of any group is wrong. She should have been a lot more firmer in condemning that. She made a mistake and I believe she owned up to it and apologized.
I think you are thinking about this the wrong way.
First the good points: with any appointment there are going to be detractors. whether the appointment was good, mediocre, or just plain bad. This is particularly true when the appointment is to a very high ranking station. I think we can all agree that Harvard University is such appointment.
With any appointment is what you do in the job which will make you successful or not. but this means if you have shadows in your past, and almost everybody does. You should clear them before you get in to power. Gay did not do this. There is almost nothing that anyone can point to out of their tenure which was exceptional in any way. As a person on the ground this was noticeable.
Now to set different way of looking at things: this is not about an African-American woman who was pristine and was knocked out for violations, this was about the liberals and conservatives fighting over the president of Harvard. the people who appointed the president of Harvard should have been far more careful about who they selected then they were.
What this means is that things like the ethnicity of the candidate are not the hill you should die on. because whether or not the president of Harvard was forced to resign does not change in the least that there are lot of eminently qualified people, who some group deems inappropriate for their jobs. Today, someplace, there were a lot of qualified black women who were let go while a less qualified white man was allowed to retain his income. This will happen tomorrow as well. This is a problem, yesterday, today, and for a long time to come.
But this means that people should not played the game of "we got the president of Harvard to resign" because she is not the person whom you want to represent the case of the community. there are much better examples. Some of us still remember the way Associate Justice Clarence Thomas was elected to the Supreme Court. It was really clear that Anita Hill was probably telling the truth, and it did not matter to the Senators who ushered Thomas on to the Supreme Court. and is tenure has been marked by an erosion of rights for all Americans and a penchant for upstanding with money that he should not have had.
This means that a person's ethnicity cannot be the only measure of whether they were dismissed fairly or not. It also means that when there is a clear case that ethnicity was the sole factor or at least one of the deciding factors, than people should rightly cause the alarm to be spread.
Having read this page on substack I know that the author has seen a great number of cases which would clearly be put in to this category. And I am sad to say she will see more because the statistics show that black women earn less even though they are probably more competent because they have to be just to have met the same level of standards.
Which means that the general point she is making, that gender and ethnicity are two strikes against many of the people who would otherwise make more contributions to society than the lazier half of males who are given a pass even to the Supreme Court of the United States, still stands. Every day the little and big indignities of something that none of us had any chance to control and which do not make the slightest that of difference to how one does the job one is assigned.
That means that while the forces of racism, let's call it what it is, may have gotten a scalp, but this is the difference between sample and statistic. And trying to confuse the two is one thing that the people who are being very proud of themselves for getting a scalp like to do, a lot. We should not stoop down to their level because as Twain said, the stupid man will drag you down to his level and then beat you with experience.
Keep doing what you're doing because it does matter each and every time you point out that our society is not even remotely fair. Perhaps I have a dog in this fight because my significant other often complains about the same thing because she is not of the appropriate ethnicity either.
It’s a shame that success for Black women too often coincides with such hatred and vitriol. It’s saddening that her tenure was short-lived, but just knowing that she became head of the institution gave many Black women hope, including myself. I fully agree with your last sentence.
In some of my other work, I write about how we are going to have to fight to get and keep these roles. We've seen how these people operate, we just have to become more strategic at beating them at their own game. At the end of the day, they will lose - the world is changing and they are not going to be able to stop that.
Truly sucks. Makes me very sad. There was a nice piece in the New Yorker about how she truly is devoted to D&I and making sure everyone feels like they belong.
Yes, she was devoted to making everyone feel included, to making everyone belong. That's the only way we can overcome the challenges the world faces. She is what future leadership on this planet should/will look like.
YES!!!
I’m glad you commented on this. Well of course she took the job! A pinnacle of achievement..and a shame that the Middle East situation which challenged others and brought down not just her ..I thought with board support she might survive it, but conservative racists weren’t going to let it go..one can only take so much abuse. A shame. But no shame on her.
I agree with what you've said. I think that we are all going to learn from this story and know how to better defeat these racists next time round.
Well said. And you are exactly right. I was stunned, although I should not have been, at how quickly the haters came for her.
I wasn't surprised at how fast they came for her. She represented everything they despised and they couldn't stand seeing her in such a powerful position. But we now know their tactics, and we should learn how to defeat them at their game. I don't think every single billionaire in the world is racist and against DEI - we need to find the ones that aren't so that we can be better prepared to win the next battle. I foresee that there will be many more on the horizon unfortunately.
I've hesitated to respond to this, because I'm not confident I'll make my points well, but here goes my best effort. Regardless of how this is perceived, this column has made me think, and examine my own thoughts (as do all of your columns.)
I agree completely with all you wrote about Dr. Gay. I'm not qualified to say whether her citation errors rise to the level of plagiarism, so I'll fall back on a position where if she would support the expulsion of a student for a similar failure, then she should hold herself to that standard, because she IS an accomplished academic, and administrator.
What bothered me most about Dr. Gay, and Drs. Magill (Penn) & Kornbluth (MIT) is that they all should have stated that calls for genocide (of any group) would go beyond the bounds of free speech and codes of conduct at the universities.
They, and their senior staff had to have known that the GOP members were going to be hostile, and would try to pin them down into sound bites that would could be used against them. They seemed to be inadequately prepared. All of the presidents, and their staffs, should have gamed the situation, known that they were going to be put on the spot, and be ready to defuse the bombshells that the GOP members of the committee were going to throw.
Well, there it is. I'll accept any criticism anyone has to make.
I agree with the points that you have made. All the presidents should have strongly condemned the calls for genocide. They were unprepared and in their "Ivory Tower" of academia.
Your post reminded me of an article about how women of colour experience what is called a Concrete Ceiling
https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_concrete_ceiling#
It’s truly heartbreaking that black people are still experiencing racism in cooperate world. I thought her resignation letter was written gracefully and professionally. I wish her all the best. She has paved the way for the future generation.
Yes, she clearly showed that it is possible to make it to the top. When you get there however you have to be a perfect human being and I think that is an impossible thing to ask of anyone.
"So why did she take the job anyway?" Because marginalized people need to occupy space! And because she was more than qualified for the job. I was thrilled when she got the job. I'm sickened to learn that Dr. Gay was ultimately made to resign. It bodes poorly for so many.
How about them nominating another qualified Black woman to replace her?
Best writing I've seen on this infuriating shittery.
Thank you.
Would a white person have to suffer through the same thing as Gay did if they somehow became President of a traditionally Black school and damaged the school's reputation in public by accident? I doubt it.
I fully agree with you perspective David.
The stepping into a job that pisses someone off is an act of courage and far sightedness that may only help future generations, even as it crushes spirits, and causes huge anxiety, and worse. It is one small step...as the saying goes, and the world, one day, may breathe a silent “thank you”.
I live in Boston, and Harvard has a large number of Jewish students and alumni groups. They started calling for her resignation before the plagiarism allegations appeared. Because they were afraid to go to a university where the head of the college was unsure if the calls for genocide of them as a people could be considered a bad thing.
Can we all agree that calling for the genocide of Jews is a bad thing always. Because if we cannot, then we can not continue this conversation. Genocide is bad in all forms
Having a leader who will not say that, while people are walking around your campus calling for the genocide of Jews. to the grandchildren of the Holocaust, well how would that make you feel? The students asked for additional security and were told to pay for it themselves. These stories can all be found in the local newspaper The Boston Globe.
For Harvard, it was just one final thing, with the promise of more to come, a mistake that should not have happened. I just want my friends to be safe in their dorms.
Calling for the genocide of any group is wrong. She should have been a lot more firmer in condemning that. She made a mistake and I believe she owned up to it and apologized.
I think you are thinking about this the wrong way.
First the good points: with any appointment there are going to be detractors. whether the appointment was good, mediocre, or just plain bad. This is particularly true when the appointment is to a very high ranking station. I think we can all agree that Harvard University is such appointment.
With any appointment is what you do in the job which will make you successful or not. but this means if you have shadows in your past, and almost everybody does. You should clear them before you get in to power. Gay did not do this. There is almost nothing that anyone can point to out of their tenure which was exceptional in any way. As a person on the ground this was noticeable.
Now to set different way of looking at things: this is not about an African-American woman who was pristine and was knocked out for violations, this was about the liberals and conservatives fighting over the president of Harvard. the people who appointed the president of Harvard should have been far more careful about who they selected then they were.
What this means is that things like the ethnicity of the candidate are not the hill you should die on. because whether or not the president of Harvard was forced to resign does not change in the least that there are lot of eminently qualified people, who some group deems inappropriate for their jobs. Today, someplace, there were a lot of qualified black women who were let go while a less qualified white man was allowed to retain his income. This will happen tomorrow as well. This is a problem, yesterday, today, and for a long time to come.
But this means that people should not played the game of "we got the president of Harvard to resign" because she is not the person whom you want to represent the case of the community. there are much better examples. Some of us still remember the way Associate Justice Clarence Thomas was elected to the Supreme Court. It was really clear that Anita Hill was probably telling the truth, and it did not matter to the Senators who ushered Thomas on to the Supreme Court. and is tenure has been marked by an erosion of rights for all Americans and a penchant for upstanding with money that he should not have had.
This means that a person's ethnicity cannot be the only measure of whether they were dismissed fairly or not. It also means that when there is a clear case that ethnicity was the sole factor or at least one of the deciding factors, than people should rightly cause the alarm to be spread.
Having read this page on substack I know that the author has seen a great number of cases which would clearly be put in to this category. And I am sad to say she will see more because the statistics show that black women earn less even though they are probably more competent because they have to be just to have met the same level of standards.
Which means that the general point she is making, that gender and ethnicity are two strikes against many of the people who would otherwise make more contributions to society than the lazier half of males who are given a pass even to the Supreme Court of the United States, still stands. Every day the little and big indignities of something that none of us had any chance to control and which do not make the slightest that of difference to how one does the job one is assigned.
That means that while the forces of racism, let's call it what it is, may have gotten a scalp, but this is the difference between sample and statistic. And trying to confuse the two is one thing that the people who are being very proud of themselves for getting a scalp like to do, a lot. We should not stoop down to their level because as Twain said, the stupid man will drag you down to his level and then beat you with experience.
Keep doing what you're doing because it does matter each and every time you point out that our society is not even remotely fair. Perhaps I have a dog in this fight because my significant other often complains about the same thing because she is not of the appropriate ethnicity either.