Earlier today we told you about the disastrous congressional hearing the presidents of several major private universities had before congress yesterday, and how much of the blowback from that hearing has been centered on Harvard University President Claudine Gay (although there's lots of blowback to go around here).
Well, it seems that Harvard has gotten wind that maybe President Gay's statements on the issue weren't the best way to play this particular hand because her office has now issues a clarification for those who might be confused... because clearly we're the ones who are confused, right? It can't be that Claudine Gay made a complete fool of herself!
Statement from President Gay: There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students. Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic…
— Harvard University (@Harvard) December 6, 2023
Statement from President Gay: There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students. Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account.
Ah, yes, it looks so simple when it's all written out like that. We wonder why Claudine Gay couldn't have just said this at the time, and apparently we're not the only ones wondering that.
Then why didn’t you say this during your Congressional hearing yesterday?!
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) December 6, 2023
STEP DOWN.
You are a failure.
Imagine being the president of an ivy league school and not being able to say this in front of Congress.
— U.S. Ministry of Truth (@USMiniTru) December 6, 2023
Not a good sign when the diversity hire couldn’t say this out loud yesterday
— Gregg Re (@gregg_re) December 6, 2023
This statement stinks of having been forced on the Office of the President by a very angry board of regents... who are looking at the responses of wealthy (former) donors like Bill Ackman here and beginning to wonder exactly how long they can operate just off of their endowments:
The world will be able to judge the relative quality of the governance at @Harvard, @Penn, and @MIT by the comparative speed by which their boards fire their respective presidents.
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) December 6, 2023
Now Harvard obviously hasn't fired President Gay, but this can't have made her feel very comfortable in her position, we wouldn't think.
Everyone was piling on Harvard for their statement, and it's always nice to see people working together to ratio a terrible tin-eared response like this.
I mean, we all heard what she said. Don’t even bother with the cleanup effort.
— Meara (@MillennialOther) December 6, 2023
It took national humiliation to figure that out? What is wrong with you???
— Jay Collinwood (@collinwood_j) December 6, 2023
What is wrong with them? So very much...
This isn’t anything like what President Gay said yesterday, or any other day since 10/7.
— The Doctor (@TennantRob) December 6, 2023
So don’t be surprised when we don’t clap or believe you. https://t.co/VtzAqVFFBO
If only you'd had an opportunity to say something in front on Congress instead of Twitter...
— The Middle Aged Baby (@MiddleAgedBaby2) December 6, 2023
Harvard students could be punished for not using preferred pronouns: Reporthttps://t.co/DTRV6Ucs0c.
— Calamity Jen (@realCalamityJen) December 6, 2023
Hey, what about that? It does seem like Harvard's interest in the First Amendment is a relatively new thing, right?
I've noticed lately that people have been going on TV and saying what they mean and then the next day their twitter account issues a statement that -- at some point -- includes the phrase "let me be clear" https://t.co/atypHc8Jjw
— Jarvis (@jarvis_best) December 6, 2023
Sooooooo someone called up and yanked the gift for the new building. https://t.co/3pj2F34x3W
— alexandriabrown (@alexthechick) December 6, 2023
The PR team got to her… now we’ll see further cleanups and clarifications every few days like after 10/7. She is just not credible. https://t.co/t4YNMoXvEx
— Ilya Shapiro (@ishapiro) December 6, 2023
Follow the money... If they're circling the wagons here you know a lot of money is under threat... and deservedly so.
Harvard finally figured out how to reduce the number of Jewish students without a quota system.
— David Pivtorak (@piv4law) December 6, 2023
After all these years they finally cracked the code! A. Lawrence Lowell would be so thrilled to see it!
This is all a huge mess for these universities, and it's only going to get worse unless some radical changes are made at these institutions. We wouldn't hold our breath waiting for that to happen but you never know, where there's money involved you can be surprised.
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