Claudine Gay should’ve been given the boot when her appalling testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce created an intense backlash regarding how college heads were dealing with the explosion of antisemitic activity on their respective campuses. Since the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of Hamas’ brutal October 7 attacks, left-wing activists and pro-Hamas students have been harassing Jewish students daily. The rallies on these campuses have called for the wholesale killing of Jews.
Gay said these incidents are considered on a case-by-case. It cost Liz Magill, who was also at the hearing, her job as president at UPenn. Instead, it took the one thing even liberal academia couldn’t ignore: plagiarism. Gay faced dozens of accusations of plagiarism, misattribution of credit in her work, and outright shoddy research, as in the case of her 2001 research paper, which got her tenure tracked at Stanford. Ms. Gay’s academic career is soaked in controversy, if not outright fraud. She’s gone, but she’s taking something massive with her: an $800,000 salary (via NY Post):
She won’t be leading the Crimson, but green shouldn’t be a problem.
Outgoing Harvard President Claudine Gay will still likely earn nearly $900,000 a year despite being forced to resign her position as the school’s top administrator.
Political Science professor Gay — who stepped down amid a tempest of allegations she did not do enough to combat antisemitism and academic plagiarism Tuesday — will now return to a position on the Cambridge, Mass., school’s faculty.
Prior to being named president just six months ago, Gay earned $879,079 as a Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean in 2021 and $824,068 in 2020, according to records published by the university.
Her new position was not specified Tuesday, but she is expected to receive a salary comparable with what she previously received — if not higher.
The point is there’s no accountability. The narrative regarding Harvard and a female black president meant the rules could be ignored. Are we shocked? No. Liz Magill is no longer president at UPenn but is still employed with its law school. If I were in academia and besieged with plagiarism allegations like Gay, knowing I had the chance to make $800k at my next gig, I’d resign, too. Where’s the headache? There is none, adding to the other narrative here: it pays to be a Democrat. You can lie, cheat, steal—get caught—and still make more money in a year than most Americans make in their lifetime.
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