As the left has taken over academia, flooding it with political correctness, DEI, and woke ideology, part of that insidious agenda has been the, for lack of a better way to put it, ranking of minorities, different places in line up and down the oppression ladder.
The problem is that not only does it pit groups of Americans against each other and create a twisted competition, but people who are completely unqualified for positions are chosen, not based on their merits, but where on that ladder they reside.
Many Americans were introduced to Harvard President Claudine Gay recently, during a Congressional hearing on antisemitism on Ivy League college campuses, after she could not bring herself to say that calling for the genocide of Jews violated her school's code of conduct.
Dr. Carol Swain, who was plagiarized by Claudine Gay, is now calling for the Harvard president to resign. https://t.co/N7aqRc3Fq0
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 15, 2023
After Gay's appearance on Capitol Hill, accusations of plagiarism came to light. In question were portions of her 1997 doctoral thesis, and four other papers written between 1993 and 2017, which do not contain the proper attributions. Anyone who has attended college for any length of time knows plagiarism is considered the deadliest of sins. It is one of the easiest ways to be expelled. But Claudine Gay will face no consequences for her actions. The Harvard Corporation, the governing body for the school, said that an investigation into the allegations was completed. It revealed three cases of "inadequate citation," but no outright plagiarism.
Carol Swain is a former political science professor at Vanderbilt University. She is a familiar face to consumers of conservative media. She is also one of Claudine Gay's plagiarism victims. Swain claims that Gay copied part of her book, "Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress," and also portions of an article Swain wrote in 1997 called "Women and Blacks in Congress: 1870-1996." Carol Swain is pretty hot about having her work stolen, and rightly so. But she also points out something else that is detrimental not just to minorities, but to everyone.
Dr. Swain is one of the scholars Gay is accused of plagiarizing from’
— Dogs Chained And Throttled On X (@baileyjer) December 13, 2023
↓
Carol Swain: If Harvard President Claudine Gay Was a ‘White Male‘ She Would Be Fired https://t.co/TTXn5n0wpV
Carol Swain no doubt has a few words for Claudine Gay, but in a brutal op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, she calls out the university for exactly what it is doing, or rather not doing--holding everyone to the same standard. Swain writes in part,
Harvard can’t condemn Ms. Gay because she is the product of an elite system that holds minorities of high pedigree to a lower standard. This harms academia as a whole, and it demeans Americans, of all races, who had to work for everything they earned.
When Carol Swain talks about "holding minorities of high pedigree to a lower standard," she is pointing out what Harvard and thousands of other colleges and universities across the nation are guilty of. Former President George W. Bush called it "the soft bigotry of low expectations." Should you get a pass for bad behavior based on what you look like? Who benefits most from the melanin scale?
Swain goes on to say that Gay has benefited from the new woke rules of academia where "where the privilege of diversity is king." Swain implies that being a black woman in an Ivy League institution has insulated Gay from any repercussions, and that the academic elite will at all costs protect their own. Combine that with being the school's first black female president. Who is going to volunteer to suggest she be fired for plagiarism or anything else? If Claudine Gay were a white male, would she already be looking for work?
So, who might Carol Swain be talking about when she refers to "minorities of high pedigree"? The easiest way to answer that question might be to look at who the admissions process favors. Before the Supreme Court struck down the use of race-based admissions, the "minorities of high pedigree" appeared to be black and Hispanic students. White and Asian students were at the bottom of the pedigree list.
Claudine Gay has denied any plagiarism and defended her academic accuracy. In a statement to the Boston Globe, Gay stated, “I stand by the integrity of my scholarship. Throughout my career, I have worked to ensure my scholarship adheres to the highest academic standards.”
Carol Swain says that Gay also lifted the work of others who are not quite as angry about it as she is, maybe because of Harvard trying to "redefine what is plagiarism." But they should be.
Swain believes the school is attempting to "redefine what is plagiarism" to protect the embattled head honcho.
"My blood pressure is rising today because of Harvard University's decision that what she did doesn't constitute plagiarism, and it doesn't rise to the level of her removal. My message to Harvard University is you don't get to redefine what is plagiarism. Most of us know what plagiarism is," she said.
