Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Harvard President Resigns-But Harvard Remains Defiant & Refuses to Confront Antisemitism

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Harvard President Resigns-But Harvard Remains Defiant & Refuses to Confront Antisemitism · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome.
0:01
Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you,
0:05
Speaker 2: and Senator let's start with the big breaking news, something
0:07
Speaker 2: you've been calling for for quite some time, and that
0:11
Speaker 2: is for the Harvard president to be ousted from that position.
0:16
Speaker 2: President Gay has resigned after her what the media is
0:20
Speaker 2: calling her rocky testimony and these new plagiarism allegations, and
0:26
Speaker 2: I think we should be honest with a verdict. Listener,
0:29
Speaker 2: do not be banboozled by the mainstream media here trying
0:32
Speaker 2: to claim this has anything to do with her anti
0:34
Speaker 2: Semitic testimony before Congress. They were more than happy to
0:38
Speaker 2: protect her. Harvard was with everything that she said before Congress.
0:42
Speaker 2: This is separate about the plagiarism allegations that have come out.
0:47
Speaker 3: Well, yesterday's news that Claudie and Gay resigned as president
0:51
Speaker 3: of Harvard is a big, big deal. The president of
0:53
Speaker 3: Harvard is the premier academic position, arguably in the United States,
0:59
Speaker 3: very possible in the world. And Claudine Gay was the
1:03
Speaker 3: embodiment of the moral rot and corruption at the heart
1:10
Speaker 3: of our elite academic institutions. Her resigning is a major
1:15
Speaker 3: step forward, and it was not done willingly. It was
1:18
Speaker 3: not done voluntarily, it was not done easily. It was
1:22
Speaker 3: I believe inevitable. And this is something you and I
1:24
Speaker 3: have been talking about on this podcast for two months
1:28
Speaker 3: now that it was clear, especially ever since her testimony
1:33
Speaker 3: before Congress, that she needed to resign, and that I
1:37
Speaker 3: believed she would resign. Now, this goes back. She has
1:42
Speaker 3: only been in the position for six months and two days,
1:44
Speaker 3: she says, the shortest tenure of any president of Harvard
1:47
Speaker 3: in the history of the institution centuries long. This goes
1:52
Speaker 3: back to October seventh, to the horrific attacks that occurred
1:56
Speaker 3: in Israel. And you'll recall in the days that follow
1:59
Speaker 3: those attacks, the Harvard administration was silent. It could not
2:04
Speaker 3: bring itself to condemn the atrocities carried out by Hamas
2:09
Speaker 3: thirty five student groups at the Harvard campus put out
2:12
Speaker 3: a statement blaming Israel for all of those atrocities, blaming
2:17
Speaker 3: Israel for every murder, for every woman and girl who
2:20
Speaker 3: was raped, for every infant that was slaughtered, saying all
2:23
Speaker 3: of them are one hundred percent Israel's fault. And even
2:26
Speaker 3: in the face of that, Claudingey could not bring herself
2:29
Speaker 3: to forcibly and unequivocally condemn Hamas and anti Semitism. But
2:35
Speaker 3: that was the beginning of this scandal that took her down.
2:38
Speaker 3: From there. We saw rising anti semitism on every campus,
2:43
Speaker 3: especially the elite campuses across the country, and we saw
2:47
Speaker 3: it Harvard, in particular, Jewish students being harassed, being actively
2:51
Speaker 3: and aggressively harassed by pro Palestinian and pro Hamas protesters,
2:55
Speaker 3: and the administration unwilling and unable to do anything. That's
2:59
Speaker 3: why Kung had the hearing with the presidents of Harvard,
3:03
Speaker 3: PEN and MIT, because the incidences of anti Semitism, of
3:06
Speaker 3: extreme Prohamas protests on university campuses had skyrocketed. That's what
3:11
Speaker 3: teed up the hearing, But even at that point, Harvard
3:15
Speaker 3: was not willing to terminate her position. Then she gave
3:19
Speaker 3: her testimony, testimony that is universally regarded as disastrous. She
3:26
Speaker 3: and the president of PENN and the president of MIT
3:29
Speaker 3: all gave testimony in which they refused to clearly and
3:33
Speaker 3: unequivocally condemn ant to Semitism. They were unable to answer
3:36
Speaker 3: the question of whether calling for the genocide of the
3:40
Speaker 3: Jewish people violated their university's code of conduct. All three
3:46
Speaker 3: of them said, well, it depends on the context, you know,
3:50
Speaker 3: implying in some instances genocide. Actively advocating the murder of
3:55
Speaker 3: your fellow students. In some instances that might be acceptable
3:59
Speaker 3: when you're political ideology presumably encourages if it is a
4:04
Speaker 3: group that is a disfavored group, then calling for their
4:06
Speaker 3: murder maybe okay, is what they essentially implied. Now, the
4:10
Speaker 3: point you just made a second ago, Ben is really important.
4:13
Speaker 3: She wasn't fired. Then within days of that testimony, the
4:17
Speaker 3: president of Penn, Liz McGill, she resigned, and she resigned
4:20
Speaker 3: because of enormous pressure from the board, enormous pressure from donors,
4:24
Speaker 3: and she was the first to go.
4:25
Speaker 2: But and that was to be clear, that was not
4:28
Speaker 2: because they wanted to do the right thing. That was
4:31
Speaker 2: because there was too many dollars that were pledged to
4:35
Speaker 2: the university that were at stake, and you had multi
4:39
Speaker 2: multimillionaires saying we will not give you our money, and
4:44
Speaker 2: that it was just it was a simple dollars and
4:47
Speaker 2: sense equation. They couldn't continue to stand by her because
4:51
Speaker 2: of the financial loss that they would have taken. Which
4:54
Speaker 2: again I say that because I want to put an
4:56
Speaker 2: asterisk by that that's not doing the right thing morally,
4:59
Speaker 2: that's not standing up for the people of Israel or
5:01
Speaker 2: any Jewish student on campus. That was simply, we don't
5:05
Speaker 2: have enough money to walk away from this money. So
5:08
Speaker 2: we're gonna have to make the right financial decision here.
5:11
Speaker 2: Not because we believe that the people, the Jewish students
5:14
Speaker 2: or the people of Israel Isra have a right to exist.
5:17
Speaker 1: It was just financial.
5:20
Speaker 3: Well, let me modify that a little bit. You also
5:22
Speaker 3: had some leadership at Penn. So, for example, the chairman
5:26
Speaker 3: of the board of Trustees of the Wharton Schools, a
5:28
Speaker 3: guy named Mark Rowan great point, who is who is
5:32
Speaker 3: a very successful New York businessman, who spoke out unequivocally
5:36
Speaker 3: and demanded that she be fired and demanded that the
5:39
Speaker 3: chair of the board of trustees of PEN be fired
5:42
Speaker 3: as well because of their response to anti Semitism. And
5:45
Speaker 3: I got to say, because you had his leadership, and
5:48
Speaker 3: you had the leadership, as you noted, of numerous donors,
5:51
Speaker 3: people like Ronald Lauder, people like the Huntsman family who
5:56
Speaker 3: said they were going to cut off their contributions to
5:58
Speaker 3: PEN that nation Pen was the most vulnerable to the
6:02
Speaker 3: pressure and Penn did the right thing.
6:05
Speaker 1: But it was a combination.
6:06
Speaker 3: You had some leadership within Pen at least in a
6:10
Speaker 3: formal position of authority, and you had the the thread
6:13
Speaker 3: of donors cutting off cash.
6:15
Speaker 1: Now at Harvard, it's.
6:18
Speaker 3: Been widely reported that there was upwards of one billion
6:21
Speaker 3: dollars of future commitments that were canceled or threatened to
6:25
Speaker 3: be canceled in light of of Harvard's terrible record on
6:29
Speaker 3: anti Semitism. And yet even even so, Harvard didn't blink.
6:35
Speaker 3: The Harvard Corporation, which is the governing body of Harvard University,
6:40
Speaker 3: put out a statement unanimously standing with Claudine Gay and
6:46
Speaker 3: and by the way, it's also been reported that Barack
6:49
Speaker 3: Obama was personally lobbying. The chairman of that board is
6:52
Speaker 3: Penny Pritzker. She was the Commerce secretary under Barack Obama.
6:56
Speaker 3: And it's been reported that Barack Obama was personally lobbying
7:02
Speaker 3: the members of the Harvard Corporation. And so their view
7:04
Speaker 3: was a horrible record on anti Semitism is okay, horrible
7:09
Speaker 3: testimony before Congress in which you cannot bring yourself to
7:13
Speaker 3: condemn people calling for the genocide of the Jewish people.
7:17
Speaker 3: That's okay, and refusing to create it an environment on
7:21
Speaker 3: campus where Jewish students are safe looking the other way
7:25
Speaker 3: at threats against your Jewish students. All of that was okay,
7:28
Speaker 3: not just okay, unanimously okay. There was not a single
7:32
Speaker 3: board member that could find even a single vertebrae in
7:36
Speaker 3: a backbone to stand up and say enough is enough.
7:38
Speaker 3: They all universally circled ranks. And then, as you noted,
7:42
Speaker 3: the plagiarism allegations began coming out. And first it was one,
7:47
Speaker 3: and then it was another, and then it was another,
7:49
Speaker 3: and then it was another, and it became nearly fifty
7:53
Speaker 3: separate allegations of plagiarism.
7:56
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Speaker 1: Let's tech take it.
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Speaker 2: By the way, how these how these these claims came
9:53
Speaker 2: out because it also I think this is one of
9:56
Speaker 2: those moments that we should highlight here, the less back
10:00
Speaker 2: of journalistic integrity among the mainstream media that did no
10:06
Speaker 2: research and did not do anything even after some of
10:11
Speaker 2: the first allegations of plagiarism came out against the Harvard
10:15
Speaker 2: president clotting Gay. It was the incredible reporting of those
10:20
Speaker 2: that are conservatives and those that were trying to grab
10:24
Speaker 2: these documents, and hard work of the Washington Free Beacon,
10:27
Speaker 2: for example, where they went in and did the hard
10:31
Speaker 2: work to compare the words of the Harvard president against
10:36
Speaker 2: those that she stole from. And yet still the media
10:40
Speaker 2: is not really reporting on this, and they certainly didn't
10:43
Speaker 2: go and actually investigate any of this.
10:46
Speaker 3: Well, look, that's exactly right. And I have to say
10:49
Speaker 3: there was no one who played a bigger role in
10:52
Speaker 3: clouding Gay's resignation the Christopher Rufo. Christopher Rufo we've had
10:56
Speaker 3: as a guest on Verdict. He has been doing an
10:59
Speaker 3: extraordinary job for years exposing critical race theory. Christopher Rufo
11:04
Speaker 3: as someone I talk about in considerable length in my
11:07
Speaker 3: new book, Unwoke. But the job that Chris did exposing this,
11:12
Speaker 3: pushing the plagiarism, giving specific examples, because the New York Times,
11:16
Speaker 3: the Washington Post, they all wanted to whitewash it. And
11:19
Speaker 3: even after she resigned, Listen to this. Listen to CNN
11:24
Speaker 3: talking about her resignation and trying to give this word
11:28
Speaker 3: salid convoluted justification for her plagiarism.
11:32
Speaker 4: Give a listen these plagiarism allegations where Clauding Gay has
11:36
Speaker 4: had to issue corrections, multiple corrections. Now we should note
11:41
Speaker 4: that cluding Gay has not been.
11:43
Speaker 5: Accused of stealing anyone's ideas in any of her writings.
11:47
Speaker 5: She's been accused of sort of more like copying other
11:51
Speaker 5: people's writings without attribution. So it's been more sloppy attribution
11:55
Speaker 5: than stealing anyone's ideas.
11:56
Speaker 4: But nonetheless, you put all that together, I mean, you
12:00
Speaker 4: hear them.
12:01
Speaker 2: They're saying allegations. It's more than fifty. They have the
12:05
Speaker 2: words side by side in this reporting from her dissertation
12:09
Speaker 2: and other documents are the things that have been published,
12:12
Speaker 2: and let's go back to Harvard and hold them accountable here.
12:15
Speaker 2: The Harvard Corporation, the school's governing body, said earlier this
12:19
Speaker 2: month that it had quote initiated an independent review of Gay's
12:22
Speaker 2: work in October and found quote no violation of Harvard's
12:26
Speaker 2: standards for research misconduct. That investigation only focused on three papers,
12:33
Speaker 2: and then what we understand is that was pretty much like, Yep,
12:36
Speaker 2: we're good, We're going to move on. Harvard's official policy states,
12:40
Speaker 2: by the way, that all allegations of faculty plagiarism must
12:43
Speaker 2: be reviewed by the school's Research Integrity Officer, and that
12:46
Speaker 2: if the allegations are the incredible, they must be sent
12:49
Speaker 2: to a further probe. Any faculty member found guilty of
12:53
Speaker 2: plagiarism can end up suspended, having their rank reduced, or
12:56
Speaker 2: even terminated. Notably, the university said it considers whether the
13:00
Speaker 2: misconduct was quote an is sight event or a or
13:04
Speaker 2: part of a pattern while deciding the appropriate level of punishment.
13:08
Speaker 2: So sintr they gave her a clean be of health.
13:10
Speaker 2: Earlier this month. They didn't want to dig into this.
13:13
Speaker 2: I think they probably knew what they were going to find.
13:15
Speaker 2: That's why they only looked at three papers and said
13:18
Speaker 2: they were going to update some of them.
13:20
Speaker 1: They were covering this up for their president.
13:23
Speaker 3: Well, that's exactly right, and it's worth noting, like what
13:26
Speaker 3: CNN when we just played there, that's utterly gobbledygooks. CNN's
13:29
Speaker 3: attempted justification is, well, she wasn't guilty of stealing other
13:33
Speaker 3: people's ideas. She just took the words they wrote and
13:35
Speaker 3: claimed they were her own. No, that's that's what plagiarism is.
13:40
Speaker 3: And by the way, if as a student at Harvard
13:43
Speaker 3: you do this once, you'll be expelled. That's how seriously
13:49
Speaker 3: the institution takes it for a student. And in her instances.
13:52
Speaker 3: All right, let me give you some examples. And like,
13:54
Speaker 3: part of what took her down was the drip, drip,
13:57
Speaker 3: drip every day. It was another allegation. It was another allegation,
14:00
Speaker 3: was so screamingly obvious that it was a double standard
14:04
Speaker 3: that Harvard's public reputation began to just be absurd. But
14:10
Speaker 3: look on January first, just a couple of days ago,
14:15
Speaker 3: an article appeared in the Washington Freebeacon entitled Harvard president
14:19
Speaker 3: Claudine Gay hit with six new charges of plagiarism. That
14:22
Speaker 3: was just a couple of days ago. And to give
14:24
Speaker 3: you a sense of it, all right, here's the first
14:26
Speaker 3: example they use. There's a professor named David Cannon who
14:31
Speaker 3: wrote a book in nineteen ninety nine entitled Race, Redistricting
14:34
Speaker 3: and Representation, The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts. And
14:40
Speaker 3: David Cannon wrote, as follows the VRA, which is the
14:44
Speaker 3: Voting Rights Act. The VRA is often cited as one
14:47
Speaker 3: of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation passed
14:49
Speaker 3: in our nation's history. Here's what Claude in Gay wrote.
14:52
Speaker 3: The Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five is often
14:55
Speaker 3: cited as one of the most significant pieces of civil
14:57
Speaker 3: rights legislation passed in our nation's history. That's word for
15:01
Speaker 3: word identical, other than she spelled out Voting Rights Act
15:04
Speaker 3: instead of saying VRA. And she added of nineteen sixty five.
15:07
Speaker 3: So congratulations, Claudine, you found the year it was passed.
15:11
Speaker 3: That's those are the only new words in the quote.
15:13
Speaker 3: All right, here's another section. This is from David Cannon.
15:18
Speaker 3: The central parts of the VRA are Section two. In
15:20
Speaker 3: Section five, the forum prohibits any state or political subdivision
15:23
Speaker 3: from imposing a voting practice that will deny or abridge
15:26
Speaker 3: the right of any citizen of the United States to
15:28
Speaker 3: vote on account of race or color. The latter imposed
15:31
Speaker 3: was imposed on only on covered jurisdictions with a history
15:34
Speaker 3: of past discrimination, which must submit changes in any electoral
15:37
Speaker 3: process or mechanism to the federal government for approval. Here's
15:41
Speaker 3: what Claudine Gay wrote. The central part of the measures
15:44
Speaker 3: are section two and section five. Section two reiterates the
15:46
Speaker 3: guarantees of the fifteenth Amendment, prohibiting any state or political
15:49
Speaker 3: subdivision from adopting voting practices that deny or abridge the
15:52
Speaker 3: right of any citizen of the United States to voter
15:54
Speaker 3: an account of race or color. Section five, imposed only
15:57
Speaker 3: on cover jurisdictions with a history of discrimination, requires Justice
16:01
Speaker 3: Department preclearances of changes in any electoral process or mechanism.
16:06
Speaker 3: The vast majority of those words are identical. All right,
16:10
Speaker 3: let me give you another example. And this is an
16:12
Speaker 3: example from her dissertation, and she lifted a sentence from
16:18
Speaker 3: her thesis advisor from Gary King, who is describing a
16:22
Speaker 3: mathematical bottle. Here's what Gary King wrote. The posterior distribution
16:26
Speaker 3: of each of the precinct parameters within the bounds indicated
16:29
Speaker 3: by its tomography line is derived by the slice. It
16:32
Speaker 3: cuts out of the bivariate distribution of all lines. Here's
16:35
Speaker 3: what Claudine Gay wrote. The posterior distribution of each of
16:38
Speaker 3: the precinct parameters for the precinct is derived by the slice.
16:41
Speaker 3: It's tomography line cuts out of this bivariate distribution. Now,
16:47
Speaker 3: I got to admit that some of that is academic gobbledegook.
16:52
Speaker 3: But the fact that she just copied it, and by
16:54
Speaker 3: the way the way plagiarism works, she could copy that
16:59
Speaker 3: if she put a quote mark in the fraudic quote
17:01
Speaker 3: mark in the back and she cited Gary King who
17:03
Speaker 3: wrote it. You're allowed to quote people. You're allowed to
17:06
Speaker 3: quote people, but the way you do it so you
17:08
Speaker 3: do not steal their words is you put it in
17:12
Speaker 3: quotation marks and you cite the person who you're quoting.
17:15
Speaker 3: What she did over and over and over again is
17:17
Speaker 3: just typed it in. And by the way, much of
17:20
Speaker 3: this was done before word processors were used. That means
17:26
Speaker 3: it was done on a typewriter. I get to say,
17:28
Speaker 3: it is much harder to accidentally plagiarize, particularly in the
17:34
Speaker 3: era of typewriters. You have some instances where say, a
17:38
Speaker 3: researcher is taking notes and they cut and paste from
17:41
Speaker 3: a cut and paste from a principal source, and they
17:44
Speaker 3: put it in their notes and they forget that it
17:46
Speaker 3: was cut and paste and they end up cutting and
17:48
Speaker 3: pasting it into their work. That's bad, that's plagiarism. And
17:52
Speaker 3: by the way, Harvard will expel you for doing that.
17:56
Speaker 3: But it is more possible for someone to do so
18:00
Speaker 3: inadvertently with word processors and cut and paste. Many of
18:03
Speaker 3: these instances, Claudine Gay, she had to type on a
18:07
Speaker 3: typewriter the words, presumably from the original source, and so
18:12
Speaker 3: she knew exactly what she was doing.
18:15
Speaker 2: When you talk about all that, let's go back to
18:18
Speaker 2: the core point here that we were mentioning earlier, and
18:20
Speaker 2: that is it is not what happened in front of Congress.
18:26
Speaker 2: And I think it's kind that we remind people of
18:28
Speaker 2: how egregious because there's three points. I want to make
18:31
Speaker 2: sure that we're clear here on verdict for everybody listening.
18:35
Speaker 2: No one has lost their job yet due to the testament.
18:38
Speaker 2: I'm talking about actually being fired, being unemployed, not getting
18:41
Speaker 2: a paycheck.
18:42
Speaker 3: Clauding Gay is still employed, Liz McGill is still employed.
18:45
Speaker 3: Their faculty members are continuing to draw their pay, and
18:48
Speaker 3: in fact, the New York Post is reporting Claudine Gay
18:51
Speaker 3: will still receive her roughly one million dollar a year salary.
18:55
Speaker 3: She just moves to a different office at Harvard and
18:57
Speaker 3: they keep paying her. And understand, I want us to
19:00
Speaker 3: play our testimony again to remember what she said, but
19:04
Speaker 3: understand this point, it's critically important. Clauding Gay has not apologized.
19:10
Speaker 3: Harvard has not apologized. They have not changed their conduct.
19:14
Speaker 3: Her resignation letter is defiant. Her resignation letter doesn't say
19:18
Speaker 3: she did anything wrong. Her resignation letter doesn't express remorse
19:22
Speaker 3: for being an apologist for those calling for the genocide
19:25
Speaker 3: of the Jewish people. It says nothing about creating an
19:28
Speaker 3: atmosphere where Jewish students are afraid for their safety. It
19:31
Speaker 3: says nothing about the repeated instances that have been pointed
19:36
Speaker 3: out of plagiarism. Instead, it blames it all on racism.
19:40
Speaker 3: And it is defiant, non apologetic, and understand Harvard Corporation likewise,
19:45
Speaker 3: their statement again was not apologetic, didn't say she done
19:48
Speaker 3: anything wrong. Instead, they blame the fact that she's resigning
19:52
Speaker 3: again on racism. This is going to be their talking point,
19:55
Speaker 3: and they're not taking accountability for their actions, and so
19:59
Speaker 3: Harvard is not. That is a critical point to remember
20:03
Speaker 3: if they're going to fix this problem. Her resignation doesn't
20:07
Speaker 3: solve it. It's a step in the right direction, but
20:10
Speaker 3: it's not a very good step when she's defiantly refusing
20:14
Speaker 3: to acknowledge anything she did wrong in the university is as.
20:17
Speaker 2: Well before we play her testimony, let's also talk about
20:20
Speaker 2: the racial aspect of this. In clutting Gay's resignation letter,
20:26
Speaker 2: she actually called out her critics as being racist. And
20:30
Speaker 2: not only that, you then had Al Sharpton saying the
20:35
Speaker 2: Harvard presence resignation quote as an attack on every black
20:40
Speaker 2: woman in America. So you can be an anti semi
20:44
Speaker 2: you can testify before Congress that calling for the extermination
20:50
Speaker 2: genocide of Jews and not denouncing it and not saying
20:53
Speaker 2: that that is a violation of the rules at Harvard.
20:57
Speaker 2: That's totally fine. You can be that person. But if
21:00
Speaker 2: you criticize clouting Gay, you are then a racist. And
21:04
Speaker 2: she and her resignation letter, when she's resigning, she made
21:07
Speaker 2: it very very clear she believes this is all because
21:11
Speaker 2: she is a black woman.
21:13
Speaker 3: Well, and let me quoting from a resignation letter. Let
21:17
Speaker 3: me tell you the operative language quote. And by the way,
21:20
Speaker 3: this is what one does to avoid plagiarism. I'm quoting her,
21:23
Speaker 3: so I'm telling you it's a quotation. These are not
21:25
Speaker 3: my words, these are hers quote. It has been distressing
21:29
Speaker 3: to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate
21:32
Speaker 3: and upholding scholarly vigor, two bedrock values that are hunt
21:36
Speaker 3: fundamental to who I am and frightening to be subjected
21:39
Speaker 3: to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus. That's
21:45
Speaker 3: what she's blaming this on, is that the only people
21:48
Speaker 3: who had criticisms about her apparently are racist. Like if
21:51
Speaker 3: you believe that Harvard's willingness to tolerate the harassment of
21:55
Speaker 3: Jewish students, to tolerate anti semitism and in fact in
21:59
Speaker 3: many ways to it, if you believe that's problematic, If
22:01
Speaker 3: you believe, actually the president of Harvard should be a
22:04
Speaker 3: scholar who complies with principles of academic integrity, that means,
22:09
Speaker 3: in her worldview, you must be a racist. And I'll
22:13
Speaker 3: tell you even worse than that. It's the end of
22:16
Speaker 3: her letter is there's a sentence that I found really galling.
22:22
Speaker 3: Here's what she writes at the end of her letter, quote,
22:26
Speaker 3: when my brief presidency is remembered, I hope it will
22:29
Speaker 3: be seen as a moment of reawakening to the importance
22:34
Speaker 3: of striving to find our common humanity and of not
22:38
Speaker 3: allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education. Now,
22:44
Speaker 3: let me ask you something. For the Jewish students at
22:48
Speaker 3: Harvard right now, who are facing harassment, who are fearing
22:52
Speaker 3: for their safety. In what universe can she say that
22:56
Speaker 3: her leadership, her brief presidency was a moment of reawakening
23:02
Speaker 3: to the importance of striving to find our common humanity.
23:06
Speaker 3: Mind you, she could not bring herself to unequivocally condemn
23:10
Speaker 3: calling for the genocide of the Jewish people, and yet
23:13
Speaker 3: she wants to be reawakening the common humanity. It is
23:18
Speaker 3: utterly defiant and refusing to acknowledge what led to this resignation.
23:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, and al Sharpton coming out, as you know, Barack Obama,
23:26
Speaker 2: as you mentioned earlier, behind the scenes, was working hard
23:28
Speaker 2: to protect her. Sharpton condemned Gay's critics as racists for
23:33
Speaker 2: questioning the integrity of a black woman, a woman that
23:36
Speaker 2: no pun intended in.
23:37
Speaker 1: Black and white.
23:39
Speaker 2: Her words show that she lifted other people's words and
23:42
Speaker 2: used them as her own, saying this quote, present days
23:46
Speaker 2: resignation is about more than a person or a single incident.
23:51
Speaker 2: And he's right, it wasn't a single incidence. Now we've
23:54
Speaker 2: been told more than fifty instance of plagiarism.
23:57
Speaker 1: He goes on to say, this.
23:58
Speaker 2: Is an attack on every black woman in this country
24:01
Speaker 2: who puts a crack in the glass ceiling. Is it
24:05
Speaker 2: really that sender or is it just the fact that
24:07
Speaker 2: she cheated? And even they at Harvard couldn't get over that.
24:13
Speaker 3: Well, it was ultimately this was hurting Harvard. Harvard was
24:16
Speaker 3: becoming a laughing stock when when and look, if you
24:19
Speaker 3: look at at at her academic record, she had published
24:25
Speaker 3: very little for a professor. You expect the president of
24:28
Speaker 3: Harvard to be a serious scholar, to be a world
24:31
Speaker 3: class scholar. And clotting Gay's entire career, what was built
24:38
Speaker 3: pushing the ideology of DEI was she was an African
24:43
Speaker 3: American studies professor. She had published relatively little. What she
24:47
Speaker 3: did publish, there now serious questions about the academic integrity
24:51
Speaker 3: of it. And and there is no person on planet
24:54
Speaker 3: Earth what it stands for.
24:56
Speaker 2: Again, just because there's maybe people that are new, yes,
24:59
Speaker 2: don't exactly know what DEI stands for.
25:01
Speaker 1: And this is something that the woke left is obsessed.
25:03
Speaker 3: With, diversity, equity, and conclusion, and it is the premise
25:08
Speaker 3: of their anti racism. It is the premise of critical
25:12
Speaker 3: race theory. It is the premise of the cultural Marxist
25:15
Speaker 3: on the left who advocate that we should affirmatively discriminate
25:22
Speaker 3: and discriminate against so called oppressors and in favor of
25:26
Speaker 3: so called victims. It's why the radical left is just
25:30
Speaker 3: fine with Jewish people being demonized, being threatened, because to
25:34
Speaker 3: the cultural Marxist Jewish people are oppressors. It's why cultural
25:39
Speaker 3: Marxists are okay with whatever Hamas terrorists do, because they
25:44
Speaker 3: are the victims. And that same reasoning. Look, I'll give
25:47
Speaker 3: you an example Ibram X. Kendy, who's one of the
25:50
Speaker 3: godfathers of critical race theory, who has pushed this so
25:54
Speaker 3: called anti racism, which we've talked about at length in
25:56
Speaker 3: this podcast. It has an Orwellian name because what he
26:00
Speaker 3: means by anti racism is aggressively discriminating against the so
26:05
Speaker 3: called oppressors on behalf of the so called victims. Here's
26:07
Speaker 3: what he had to say about Claudine Gay resigning.
26:11
Speaker 1: Quote.
26:12
Speaker 3: Racist mobs won't stop until they topple all black people
26:17
Speaker 3: from positions of power and influence who are not reinforcing
26:21
Speaker 3: the structure of racism. What these racist mobs are doing
26:26
Speaker 3: should be obvious to any reporter who cares about truth
26:29
Speaker 3: or justice as opposed to conflicts and clicks. That is
26:35
Speaker 3: going to be their talking point. If you dare stand
26:38
Speaker 3: against their radical ideology, you are by definition a racist.
26:44
Speaker 3: And and and they that they still see nothing that
26:50
Speaker 3: she did or said that was wrong.
26:52
Speaker 2: I want to I want to play for everybody to
26:54
Speaker 2: remind them of exactly where all this started and to
26:58
Speaker 2: put it back into context of of the demise of
27:01
Speaker 2: this Harvard president is not for what she said that
27:04
Speaker 2: was anti Israel, anti Semitic.
27:07
Speaker 1: It was the plagiarism.
27:09
Speaker 2: And do not be duped by the mainstream media acting
27:12
Speaker 2: like she's being held accountable for these words. These words
27:15
Speaker 2: that she said before Congress to representive Stephanic are words
27:18
Speaker 2: that Harvard was willing to stand by her no matter
27:21
Speaker 2: what here is that? Flashback to December the fifth, and
27:26
Speaker 2: what was said.
27:27
Speaker 6: We're student calling for the mass murder of African Americans
27:31
Speaker 6: is not protected free speech at Harvard?
27:33
Speaker 7: Correct?
27:35
Speaker 8: Our commitment?
27:36
Speaker 7: It's a yes or no question? Is that corrected?
27:38
Speaker 6: Is that okay for students to call for the mass
27:41
Speaker 6: murder of African Americans at Harvard?
27:43
Speaker 7: Is that protected free speech?
27:45
Speaker 8: Our commitment to free school?
27:47
Speaker 7: It's a yes or no question. Let me ask you this.
27:50
Speaker 6: You are president of Harvard, so I assume you're familiar
27:53
Speaker 6: with the term into fota.
27:54
Speaker 7: Correct.
27:56
Speaker 8: I've heard that term?
27:57
Speaker 6: Yes, and you understand that the use of the term
28:00
Speaker 6: into fada in the context of the Israeli Arab conflict
28:03
Speaker 6: is indeed a call for violent arm resistance against the
28:07
Speaker 6: state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide
28:10
Speaker 6: of Jews.
28:11
Speaker 9: Are you aware of that that type of hateful speech
28:15
Speaker 9: is personally abhorrent to me?
28:17
Speaker 6: And there have been multiple marches at Harvard with students chanting, quote,
28:21
Speaker 6: there is only one solution into fada, revolution and quote
28:25
Speaker 6: globalize the intofada.
28:26
Speaker 7: Is that correct?
28:29
Speaker 9: I've heard that thoughtless, reckless and hateful language on our campus.
28:35
Speaker 8: Yes.
28:35
Speaker 6: So, based upon your testimony, you understand that this call
28:39
Speaker 6: for intofada is to commit genocide against the Jewish people
28:43
Speaker 6: in Israel and globally correct.
28:46
Speaker 9: I will say again that type of hateful speech is
28:51
Speaker 9: personally abhorrent to me.
28:53
Speaker 6: Do you believe that type of hateful speech is contrary
28:57
Speaker 6: to Harvard's code of conduct?
28:58
Speaker 7: Or is it allowed at Harvard?
29:01
Speaker 8: It is at odds with the values of Harvard.
29:04
Speaker 7: Can you not.
29:04
Speaker 6: Say that it is against the code of conduct at Harvard?
29:08
Speaker 9: We embrace a commitment to free expression, even of views
29:12
Speaker 9: that are objectionable, offensive, hateful. It's when that speech crosses
29:19
Speaker 9: into conduct that violates our policies against bullying.
29:24
Speaker 7: Does that speech not cost that barrier?
29:26
Speaker 6: Does that speech not call for the genocide of Jews
29:29
Speaker 6: and the elimination of Israel? When you testify that you
29:33
Speaker 6: understand that is the definition of intofada? Is that speech
29:37
Speaker 6: according to the code of conduct or not.
29:40
Speaker 9: We embrace a commitment to free expression and give a
29:43
Speaker 9: wide berth to free expression, even of views that are objectionable.
29:49
Speaker 7: You and I both know that's not the case.
29:50
Speaker 6: You are aware that Harvard ranked dead last when it
29:53
Speaker 6: came to free speech.
29:54
Speaker 7: Are you not aware of that report?
29:57
Speaker 9: As I observed earlier, I reject that characterization.
30:02
Speaker 7: It's the data shows it's true.
30:04
Speaker 6: And isn't it true that Harvard previously rescinded multiple offers
30:07
Speaker 6: of admissions for applicants and accepted freshmen for sharing offensive memes,
30:12
Speaker 6: racist statements, sometimes as young as sixteen years old. Did
30:16
Speaker 6: Harvard not rescind those offers of admission?
30:19
Speaker 8: That long predates my time as present.
30:21
Speaker 6: But you understand that Harvard made that decision to restin
30:23
Speaker 6: those offers of admission.
30:26
Speaker 8: I have no reason to contradict the facts as you
30:28
Speaker 8: present them.
30:29
Speaker 7: Correct because it's a fact.
30:30
Speaker 6: You're also aware that a Winthrop House faculty dean was
30:34
Speaker 6: let go over who he chose.
30:36
Speaker 7: To legally represent. Correct, that was while you were dean.
30:41
Speaker 8: That is an incorrect characterization. Avoid transfer.
30:43
Speaker 7: What's the characterization.
30:45
Speaker 9: I'm not going to get into details about a personnel matter.
30:49
Speaker 6: Well, let me ask you this, Will admissions offers be
30:52
Speaker 6: rescinded or any disciplinary action be taken against students or
30:56
Speaker 6: applicants who say from the River to the Sea or
30:59
Speaker 6: into five advocating for the murder of Jews?
31:03
Speaker 9: As I've said, that type of hateful, reckless, offensive speech
31:08
Speaker 9: is personally abhorrent to.
31:10
Speaker 7: Me and today that no action will be taken. What
31:13
Speaker 7: action will be taken?
31:14
Speaker 9: When speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies, including
31:19
Speaker 9: policies against fullying, harassment, or intimidation, We take action, and
31:24
Speaker 9: we have robust disciplinary processes that allow us to hold
31:29
Speaker 9: individuals accountable.
31:30
Speaker 6: What action has been taken against students who are harassing
31:34
Speaker 6: and calling for the genocide of Jews on Harvard's campus.
31:39
Speaker 8: I can assure you we have robust.
31:41
Speaker 7: What actions have been taken?
31:43
Speaker 8: I'm not askingations underway?
31:44
Speaker 6: I'm asking what actions have been taken again and students.
31:48
Speaker 9: Given students' rights to privacy and our obligations under FURPA,
31:54
Speaker 9: I will not say more about any specific cases other
31:57
Speaker 9: than to reiterate that process are ongoing.
32:02
Speaker 7: Do you know what the number one hate crime in
32:03
Speaker 7: America is?
32:06
Speaker 9: I know that over the last couple of months there
32:10
Speaker 9: has been an alarming rise of anti Semitism, which I
32:13
Speaker 9: understand is the critical topic that we are here to discuss.
32:18
Speaker 7: That's correct.
32:19
Speaker 6: It is anti Jewish hate crimes, and Harvard ranks the
32:24
Speaker 6: lowest when it comes to protecting Jewish students.
32:27
Speaker 7: This is why I've called for your resignation.
32:29
Speaker 6: And your testimony today, not being able to answer with
32:31
Speaker 6: moral charity speaks volumes.
32:34
Speaker 1: I yield back, Senator, you hear that.
32:37
Speaker 2: And the part that I think galls me the most
32:41
Speaker 2: is the fact that she's still employed. She's still going
32:45
Speaker 2: to be paid about a million dollars a year. She's
32:49
Speaker 2: just had a title change. That's it.
32:53
Speaker 3: Well, and Harvard doesn't intend to change its conduct. They
32:56
Speaker 3: certainly have made no expression that they intend to do differently.
33:01
Speaker 3: That they were forced after over a billion dollars in
33:06
Speaker 3: commitments to contributions, were called out, after academically their president
33:12
Speaker 3: became a laughing stock, after you began to have students
33:16
Speaker 3: who I would note had to anonymously call for her
33:19
Speaker 3: to resign because they were afraid of retaliation, after you
33:23
Speaker 3: had d editorials in the New York Times and the
33:27
Speaker 3: Washington Post, bastions of the left, both calling not from
33:31
Speaker 3: the papers but from people submitting op eds calling for
33:36
Speaker 3: her resignation. After all of that, it became intolerable. And
33:41
Speaker 3: yet they dug in, and they dug in, and they
33:43
Speaker 3: dug in, and and it's really quite ironic. You look
33:47
Speaker 3: at her testimony, and she she is defending free speech,
33:51
Speaker 3: and it would be one thing. If she was saying,
33:52
Speaker 3: you know, Harvard's a place where anyone can say anything,
33:55
Speaker 3: and we protect free speech for everyone. That's laughably false.
34:00
Speaker 3: They protect free speech for anti semits and leftists and
34:03
Speaker 3: at the same time, so there's an organization called Fire
34:07
Speaker 3: and Fire is actively involved in fighting to defend free
34:10
Speaker 3: speech and examining censorship and suppression of free speech on campus.
34:15
Speaker 3: And they do an elaborate survey every year at an analysis
34:20
Speaker 3: of universities across the country. So Harvard is consistently ranked
34:24
Speaker 3: one of the worst in the country. In twenty twenty,
34:28
Speaker 3: Harvard ranked number forty six out of fifty five schools
34:31
Speaker 3: in terms of protecting free speech. In twenty twenty one,
34:34
Speaker 3: it ranked one hundred and thirty out of one hundred
34:36
Speaker 3: and fifty four schools. In twenty twenty two, it ranked
34:39
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy out of two hundred and three schools,
34:41
Speaker 3: and this past year, in two thousand and three, Harvard
34:46
Speaker 3: was dead last, and out of a possible score from
34:51
Speaker 3: zero to one hundred, Harvard's score was actually a negative
34:54
Speaker 3: ten point six y nine, so it was dead last.
34:57
Speaker 3: It was six standard deviations below the average and more
35:01
Speaker 3: than two standard deviations below the second to last school
35:05
Speaker 3: in the rankings, and the second to last school was
35:08
Speaker 3: the University of Pennsylvania, penn And so when she is
35:13
Speaker 3: is saying, well, anti Semites are allowed and apparently encouraged
35:19
Speaker 3: because of free speech, that is a policy that is
35:23
Speaker 3: applied very selectively, and Harvard's expressed no willingness, no desire
35:29
Speaker 3: to correct that. And I think it is imperative that
35:34
Speaker 3: this become a moment to try to address and try
35:39
Speaker 3: to fix the profound ideological corruption. By the way, if
35:45
Speaker 3: you look at the Harvard Corporation board, every single one
35:48
Speaker 3: of its board members is an hardcore partisan, ideological democrat.
35:54
Speaker 3: There is no one right of center allowed anywhere near
35:57
Speaker 3: that board. And you see in the policies why they
36:02
Speaker 3: universally circled the wagons around Claudine Gay and it was
36:06
Speaker 3: only when dragged, kicking and screaming that they allowed her
36:10
Speaker 3: to resign. It is critically important to underscore that the
36:15
Speaker 3: central issue at these schools is not free speech. It's
36:18
Speaker 3: not what people are saying. It is harassment and abuse.
36:22
Speaker 3: Jewish students are being subjected to threats of violence, to
36:25
Speaker 3: active harassment, and no student has a right to harass
36:29
Speaker 3: another student. You can't go up to an African American
36:32
Speaker 3: student and harass that student and scream and holler and
36:34
Speaker 3: threaten that student. Because a race. You can't go up
36:36
Speaker 3: to a white student, you can't go up to a woman.
36:39
Speaker 3: You can't and shouldn't be able to go go up
36:41
Speaker 3: to a Jewish student, or a Muslim student, or any student.
36:43
Speaker 3: No student has the right to harass or threaten another student.
36:47
Speaker 3: And Harvard and many of these schools are doing a
36:49
Speaker 3: terrible job protecting the safety of their students. I have
36:53
Speaker 3: a lot of good friends who have kids in college
36:56
Speaker 3: right now and who are Jewish, and almost to a person,
36:59
Speaker 3: they're telling me their children are reporting, who are college
37:02
Speaker 3: students now, that they were afraid for their safety. And
37:04
Speaker 3: that's what Harvard and these administrators are refusing to recognize
37:09
Speaker 3: and fix the next step. And I want to say
37:11
Speaker 3: something three times, Mit MIT, MIT. There were three presidents
37:17
Speaker 3: who testified Penn, Harvard, and MIT. All three of the
37:21
Speaker 3: testimonies were abysmal. The president of MIT is Sally Cornbluth.
37:25
Speaker 3: We have talked about on Verdict how at MIT Jewish
37:30
Speaker 3: students were actively prevented from going to class because of
37:34
Speaker 3: threats of violence from pro Haamas protesters who were threatening
37:38
Speaker 3: to physically harm them, and then the MIT administration shamefully
37:43
Speaker 3: said they would not discipline the students who were threatening
37:46
Speaker 3: the Jewish students. Why because many of them were foreigners.
37:50
Speaker 3: They were foreign students from foreign countries, and if they
37:52
Speaker 3: were expelled from MIT, they'd lose their student visas, and
37:56
Speaker 3: so therefore MIT would not respond. In many ways, MIT's
38:02
Speaker 3: behavior has been the most disgraceful of the three. And
38:05
Speaker 3: I do want to give a shout out to Bill Ackman.
38:08
Speaker 3: Bill Ackman has been incredibly important. Acman is a Harvard alum,
38:13
Speaker 3: He's a billionaire, he's the founder of Pershing Square Capital Management,
38:16
Speaker 3: and he has been incredibly vocal calling out these schools,
38:20
Speaker 3: putting pressure. He put enormous pressure on Penn, he put
38:25
Speaker 3: enormous pressure on Harvard. And I will say, right after
38:28
Speaker 3: clotting Gay resigned, Ackman posted on Twitter at to Sally
38:33
Speaker 3: a call out to Sally Cornbluth that MIT should be next.
38:39
Speaker 3: I believe she will resign. But MIT's view is exactly
38:44
Speaker 3: what Harvard's view was. Before the plagiarism forced their hand.
38:48
Speaker 3: They were willing to just bury their heads in their
38:50
Speaker 3: sand and ignore the pattern of anti semetrism and harassment
38:54
Speaker 3: of Jewish students, and so the exposing with sunlight what
38:58
Speaker 3: they're doing is critical. And once that happens, we need
39:01
Speaker 3: to make sure these institutions change. It's not enough for
39:05
Speaker 3: them to put in a new leftist who continues the
39:07
Speaker 3: identical pattern as presidents. We need to change the culture
39:11
Speaker 3: and attitude so that all students are protected on campus
39:15
Speaker 3: rather than these positions being abused.
39:19
Speaker 1: Amen to that. Don't forget.
39:20
Speaker 2: We did a show Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and a week
39:23
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Speaker 2: the Ben Ferguson Podcasts. In those in between days. I'll
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Speaker 2: keep you update on the latest breaking news. Happy New Year,
39:55
Speaker 2: and we'll see you back here in a couple of days.