Claudine Gay and the Anti-Equity Movement

As a Jewish DEIB practitioner invested in fighting antisemitism, I'm deeply saddened to learn that, after only a 6 month term, Harvard President Claudine Gay has resigned. She is the first Black person to lead Harvard and its second woman president.

While antisemitism on college campuses is a real problem, anti-DEI extremists' weaponizing of antisemitism is actually a part of a broad attack on equity and justice in US society. This explains the witch hunt against Dr. Gay.

All of the three university presidents who testified before Congress last month faced intense criticism for appearing to equivocate when asked if students calling for the genocide of Jewish people would be punished. But only Dr. Gay faced allegations of plagiarism -- allegations which Harvard investigated and found to be without merit. In fact, Dr. Gay did not steal any other scholar's ideas or research in her dissertation or elsewhere.

Claudine Gay was forced to resign as Harvard's president not because of her comments at the hearing or because of “improper citation,” but because she is a Black woman in a culture that failed to support her leadership.

If there's a lesson for us as equity advocates in 2024, it's that we must be more fierce in our support for Black women, more attentive to the intersection of antisemitism and racism, more nuanced and proactive in our DEI efforts.

Image description": This photograph of Claudine Gay testifying before the House Education and Workforce Committee on Dec 5, 2023 appeared in truthout https://truthout.org/articles/claudine-gay-faced-racism-and-zionist-ire-she-also-failed-palestinian-students/ Image credit: KEVIN DIETSCH / GETTY IMAGES.