Ibram X Kendi claims ‘racist mobs’ forced plagiarist Harvard president Claudine Gay to resign

Gay, who has headed the nation's most prestigious university for only six short months, revealed her unwillingness to condemn antisemitism on Harvard's campus during an epic congressional hearing during which she was grilled by New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. Researchers Christopher Rufo and Chris Brunet uncovered plagiarism in Gay's PhD dissertation. Additional instances of plagiarism were then uncovered in her academic work, which contains no books and only 11 articles.

Nevertheless, for Kendi, Gay's resignation was all about racism. "Racist mobs won’t stop until they topple all Black people from positions of power and influence who are not reinforcing the structure of racism," Kendi said on X. "What these racist mobs are doing should be obvious to any reporter who cares about truth or justice as opposed to conflicts and clicks." Gay will retain her salary of $900,000 per year as she remains on faculty.

Gay's resignation letter referrenced a conversation with the Harvard Corporation, after which, she said, it had "become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard" for her to resign. She cited the need of the community to "navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual."

She said that during the past few months after the congressional hearing, "it has been distressing to have doubt cast upon [her] commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor." She went on to mention that it had been "frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus."

University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill also resigned after testifying in the same congressional hearing and making similar remarks about student antisemitism on campus being upheld by free speech. Like Harvard, however, UPenn has been adamant that not using a persons "preferred pronouns" is hate speech, while going on to tell Stefanik that calling for a Jewish genocide was pretty much unpleasant but fine. Magill is white. She received no support from the UPenn board and was essentially ousted at the first sign of backlash.

Gay was initially supported by the Harvard Corporation and faculty until the more severe allegations of plagiarism were revealed. Students at Harvard can be expelled for this academic crime.

Kendi, however, views every event, both current and historical, through the lens of race and racism. He essentially wears racism colored glasses and can see cause for racial grievance everywhere he looks. He also demanded that the Supreme Court of the United States remove former president and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump from the upcoming 2024 primary ballot. "If the SCOTUS refuses to disqualify Donald Trump from running for POTUS after leading an insurrection on January 6, 2021," he said, "then it will be the latest indication that the Confederates lost the military battles but won the legal war."

During Gay's testimony, Stefanik asked if called for the genocide of Jews were "against the Code of Conduct at Harvard."

"We embrace a commitment to free expression even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful - it’s when that speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies against bullying, harassment, intimidation…" Gay said.

"Does that speech not cross that barrier? Does that speech not call for the genocide of Jews and the elimination of Israel? You testified that you understand that that is the definition of “intifada.” Is that speech according to the Code of Conduct or not?" Stefanik asked.

"We embrace a commitment to free expression and give a wide berth to free expression even of views that are objectionable, outrageous and offensive," Gay repeated.

Harvard receiving failing marks in free speech rankings from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, coming in at the bottom of of the ratings and was the only university categorized as having an "abysmal" speech climate.