Tipsheet

This Entire AP Story on Claudine Gay's Resignation Should Be Retracted

Spencer Brown
Spencer Brown  |  January 03, 2024 12:00 PM

It's as unsurprising as the sun rising in the morning, yet the Associated Press' attempt at covering for Harvard President Claudine Gay as she resigns in disgrace amid multiple scandals is one for the record books.

Let's begin with the story's headline: "Harvard president’s resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism" Oh? Oh. 

You see, it was those dastardly conservatives who schemed — potentially with the assistance of a time machine, or something — to have Claudine Gay (allegedly) plagiarize the works of other scholars in order to write barely one dozen pieces of her own. These conservatives knew exactly what they were doing, and then they returned to the present and used their "weapon" to force her out of her job! How remarkable. 

Unsurprisingly, AP's post on X got ratio'd into oblivion AND there's a health pile of Community Notes being added.

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After being soundly mocked for the headline, AP updated it to "Plagiarism charges downed Harvard’s president. A conservative attack helped to fan the outrage," though that's barely better. All the revised header did was further implicate the Harvard Corporation's sloppy and rushed review of Gay's work before elevating her to the presidency, followed up by its equally unserious review of some allegations against Gay that declared there's "nothing to see, here."

If you thought the headline was absurd, just wait until you get to the copy of this "report" from supposedly authoritative AP. Take this paragraph, for example, that also had to be updated after publication because of its laughable attempt to warp reality and human history into a fitting vessel for AP's biased reporting.

As initially published, AP's report stated:

Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who helped orchestrate the effort, celebrated her departure as a win in his campaign against elite institutions of higher education. On X, formerly Twitter, he wrote “SCALPED,” as if Gay was a trophy of violence, invoking a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans.

The story was later updated to add "...and also used by some tribes against their enemies." to the end of that thought, but without an editor's note disclosing the addition.

What AP's zeal for attacking conservatives failed to check was when and from whom scalping originated. Just a cursory Google turns up this entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Archaeological evidence for such practices in North America dates to at least the early 14th century; a mass grave from that period, containing nearly 500 victims (some with evidence of scalping), was found near present-day Crow Creek, South Dakota (U.S.)... Native Americans in the Southeast took scalps to achieve the status of warrior and to placate the spirits of the dead, while most members of Northeastern tribes valued the taking of captives over scalps. Among Plains Indians scalps were taken for war honours, often from live victims. As a challenge to their enemies, some Native Americans shaved their heads. The scalp was sometimes offered as a ritual sacrifice or preserved and carried by women in a triumphal scalp dance, later to be retained as a pendant by the warrior, used as tribal medicine, or discarded.

Ah yes, those pesky "white colonists" of the... 14th century? Who used scalps for ritual sacrifices and triumphal scalp dances? 

The AP's best efforts to make the scandal about conservatives and white colonists is par for the course, laughable, and a damming indictment of mainstream media bias. But the scrambling by AP to rush an inaccurate and inane story, then stealth-edit the piece after getting rightly mocked for its absurd assertions shows that conservatives do have a good bit of power. 

After all, Gay wouldn't have resigned and the AP wouldn't be running around with its proverbial hair on fire if conservatives were powerless in situations such as these. 

As Chris Rufo pointed out on Wednesday, everything is progressing as planned, and this "is how the game is won."