Harvard’s Claudine Gay Finally Resigns – but Ultimately, it’s a Meaningless Gesture

This month has been a difficult one for Ivy League Presidents who couldn’t figure out the context in which calling for the genocide of Jewish people was wrong.

After smugly avoiding direct answers in front of Congress on December 5, both University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Harvard President Claudine Gay stepped down. But don’t get excited thinking this was a victory for morality and values in this country. It’s all about money.

If it were about morality, values, or just plain not being okay with calling for the genocide of any group of people, then 500 faculty members from Harvard wouldn’t have quickly lined up after her testimony to stand in solidarity with her. Instead, it took major donors pulling their money for the university to act.

The last straw may have been when billionaire Len Blavatnik suspended his donations to the school. According to CNN Business, “Blavatnik’s family foundation has donated at least $270 million to Harvard, the source said.” It’s safe to assume that Blavatnik’s is one of the largest relied-upon donations every year, and it went as silent as the audience during the cringe-worthy Saturday Night Live sketch that attempted to cover for Gay earlier this month.

The usual leftist suspects came out in defense of her by screaming ‘racism’ into the sky. Ibram X. Kendi, who hates white people, tweeted that it was “racist mobs” that caused Gay’s resignation:

“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. What these racist mobs are doing should be obvious to any reporter who cares about truth or justice as opposed to conflicts and clicks.”

Not shockingly, Claudine Gay herself claimed that it was racism that caused her to need to forfeit her position in her resignation letter:

“Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor—two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am—and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.”

I guess those ‘racists’ were so sneaky that they were able to covertly add plagiarism to multiple academic documents that Gay authored. On New Year’s Day, The Washington Free Beacon reported that there were six new charges of plagiarism on top of the pile that had already been amassed over the past month.

Don’t think this will be the last time you hear from Gay in a major public position. Just because she cost Harvard enough money to get her to leave doesn’t mean she won’t take up similar reigns in a corporation or for the Biden administration.

I’m not a betting man, but I’d be willing to wager that if the disgraced former President leaves Harvard, she will land an advisory role at a major media company or a high-level appointed position in the Biden administration. But why leave when she can stay and keep her roughly $1 million salary in a lower position?

Gay isn’t going anywhere; she just won’t have the fancy office anymore. As Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean, she made nearly $900,000 a year. She’ll just slide back into that or another role, most likely with a raise, and some other currently non-controversial card-carrying leftist will take her place.

Hopefully, large donors will have learned their lessons and never give again, but ultimately, there will be no shift in ideology at Harvard or any of the other schools.