Things have not calmed down on the campus of Harvard. Quite the opposite — behind the ivy-choked masonry in Boston, the atmosphere is roiling. After the campus president inflamed the country, we now have faculty members stepping up to decry her stature, and businesses are showing signs of backing away from the once austere character of the college’s graduates, as we are seeing evidence of a viral mindset infecting this school.

You know things are bad when a story like this not only remains in the news cycle but continues to evolve. Following her testimony before Congress over the actions (or specifically, the lack thereof) towards blatantly antisemitic protests and calls for violence against Jews, Harvard’s President Claudine Gay continues to be a fixture. In the wake of her appalling appearance, we have come to see she operates in a realm that is divorced from reality.

I recently covered how Claudine Gay’s words have exposed not only the way DEI has metastasized on her campus and others but also that the press supporting her testimony has also become compromised. For the better part of a year, the media have been scorching Elon Musk for supposedly fostering hate because he has lowered the barricades on expression on Xitter. But one thing still not tolerated on his platform is any content making the use of threatening language. Yet, as Dr. Gay has stood by students calling for the eradication of Israel and similar language, the press appears unbothered. 

Some calls for violence are more equal than others, was the message.

Yet her testimony was only the beginning of problems for the Ivy League president. Two days after she tried to defend her inaction towards calls for Jewish genocide, claiming that she was essentially a free-speech absolutist, we saw Dr. Gay blocked a debate from taking place at Harvard because one of the speakers criticized her comments to Congress. (Babylon Bee need not comment, it is already parody.) 

Then, word began to spread that Claudine’s publishing record was an item of dispute. It was said some of her papers (less than a dozen in total, a woeful amount for a college president) contained plagiarized elements. By now, the examples are numbering into the dozens, with her lifting content from up to 20 sources. When the New York Post looked into this matter — months before Gay’s Congressional appearance – the school allowed its president to go back and correct some attribution errors. Harvard expels students found to be lifting the work of others, but somehow, its leader was granted a Hall Pass. Then, the allegedly free-speech absolutists sent a legal team after The Post for defamation. 

This growing cloud of discrediting detail has led to ramifications over the past couple of weeks. Billionaire hedge-fund manager and alumnus Bill Ackman has been leading calls for Gay’s ouster. One prominent law firm has declared it is pulling out of on-campus recruitment. As we also covered, early enrollments are already seeing a significant plunge following this controversy.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of a tidal shift — and possibly one that is tectonic — comes from a letter penned by a sitting member of the Harvard faculty. Mark Ramseyer delivered an email to the rest of the faculty that is scathing in its approach to not just this issue surrounding Claudine Gay but as to DEI, as well.

Eloquent and heartbreaking. From Harvard Law Professor Mark Ramseyer's email to a Harvard list (with permission). I came for my PhD in '99, he came as a prof in '98. We were each publicly attacked for our views in '21.
"Harvard is a vastly less tolerant place than it was when I…

— Carole Hooven (@hoovlet) December 18, 2023

These are not small pronouncements. Stating definitively that the faculty has failed and that the alumni are trying not just to help but “rescue” Harvard speaks volumes about the problems. It is also encouraging. The very fact that someone in the faculty is willing to speak out about the cancerous issue of DEI and declare it to be a “moral failure” is deeply significant. That one of the most esteemed colleges in the nation is looking at this matter in such a way could lead to this becoming the start of other schools walking away from the poisonous institution.

It may have been inevitable that these policies and actions would manifest into this kind of reaction. Claudine Gay is being revealed as someone probably installed under the veil of the DEI insistence on appearances and labels and its diminished focus on standards. For the sake of higher education in this country, one can hope that this signals DEI being recognized for the problem it is and what it has created. (Or, more accurately, for what it has torn down.)

That an austere institution like Harvard had to first endure a lengthy process of diminished import as a result of these policies before reaching this stage is the reality. It is already being seen that the school’s name is morphing into a punchline. It remains to be seen if they can repair the damage Professor Ramseyer says resulted from what they “let Harvard become.”