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Tag: Claudine Gay

  • Former Spelman President Addresses Higher Education Crisis at Campus Event

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    “Peril and Promise: College Leadership in Turbulent Times”(above) was made available for purchase before the fireside chat.
    Photo by Noah Washington/The Atlanta Voice

    Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, President emerita of Spelman College, launched her book tour on Wednesday evening. She discussed the challenges rocking higher education and the tough leadership decisions that defined her 13-year tenure at the historically Black women’s college.

    Speaking before a packed audience of students, alumni, faculty, and supporters at Spelman’s Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby Academic Center Auditorium, Tatum presented her latest work, “Peril and Promise: College Leadership in Turbulent Times.” The timing proved apt as moderator & WABE journalist Rose Scott for the fireside chat opened the evening by addressing breaking news about Emory University’s decision to eliminate its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, setting the stage for the conversation to follow.

    Bold Decisions and Health Priorities

    One of Tatum’s most controversial decisions during her tenure as Spelman’s president from 2002 to 2015 was discontinuing Spelman’s NCAA Division III athletics program in 2012. The choice sparked fierce debate but grew from genuine concern about student wellness during a pivotal moment in her presidency.

    The catalyst came during a sparsely attended basketball game as the Great South Athletic Conference dissolved around schools seeking more competitive opportunities. Tatum said, “I was sitting watching the basketball game, five players on the court, and five people, maybe on the bench, and hardly anybody in the stands,” Tatum recalled. “And while I was watching this game, I had an ‘aha’ moment and the little whisper said, ‘flip it.’”

    Tatum had discovered research showing young Black women had the highest rates of physical inactivity among all demographic groups, leading to early onset diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure. By investing in comprehensive wellness programs instead of traditional athletics, she saw transformational potential aligned with Spelman’s mission. By investing in comprehensive wellness programs instead of traditional athletics, she saw an opportunity for transformational impact.

    “We could change not only the trajectory of our students, but our students would change the trajectory of their families, their communities,” she explained.

    Learning from Leadership Challenges and Broader Patterns

    When asked about the correlation between Black women achieving the highest college graduation rates and changing attitudes toward higher education, Tatum offered her perspective on broader social patterns affecting academic leadership.

    “There’s a pattern of devaluing activities when they become feminized,” Tatum observed. “As campus communities have become more diverse, as there has been greater access on the part of people of color to higher education, there is less public support for it.”

    Her analysis of Claudine Gay’s treatment, Harvard’s 30th president, provided a specific example of these dynamics at work. Tatum noted the stark difference in public response when Gay resigned compared to Stanford’s president,  Marc Tessier-Lavigne who had stepped down six months earlier over similar academic integrity concerns.

    “When he stepped down, people didn’t call him a DEI hire,” Tatum pointed out. “People expressed regret that he was leaving, and that’s the difference.”

    Despite these challenges, Tatum emphasized the enduring importance of higher education’s mission, referencing a 1945 Truman Commission that identified three essential purposes: maintaining democracy, fostering international cooperation, and applying creative thinking to complex problems.

    “We need people who have an understanding of history, who recognize history when it’s repeating, who are able to think critically about the social challenges that are part of our democratic process,” she said.

    Photo by Noah Washington/The Atlanta Washington

    Leading Through Crisis

    During Q&A, Tatum shared the personal philosophy that guided her through multiple crises. Asked about courage, she reframed fear: “Fear stands for false evidence appearing real.”

    “It’s not that the fear goes away when you’re taking courageous action, even when you’re afraid. You act even in the presence of fear,” she said.

    This philosophy was tested during what she called “a president’s worst nightmare”, when responding to the killing of Jasmine Lynn,  a student at Spelman in September 2009. Despite staff assurances, she immediately returned to campus from Washington, D.C.

    “In a moment like that, you have to be there,” she said simply.

    The evening concluded with a book signing for attendees. 

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    Noah Washington

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  • Business Insider Stands By Plagiarism Accusation Against Billionaire’s Wife

    Business Insider Stands By Plagiarism Accusation Against Billionaire’s Wife

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Business Insider’s top executive and parent company said Sunday they were satisfied with the fairness and accuracy of stories that made plagiarism accusations against a former MIT professor who is married to a prominent critic of former Harvard President Claudine Gay.

    “We stand by Business Insider and its newsroom,” said a spokesman for Axel Springer, the German media company that owns the publication.

    The company had said it would look into the stories about Neri Oxman, a prominent designer, following complaints by her husband, Bill Ackman, a Harvard graduate and CEO of the Pershing Square investment firm. He publicly campaigned against Gay, who resigned earlier this month following criticism of her answers at a congressional hearing on antisemitism and charges that her academic writing contained examples of improperly credited work.

    With its stories, Business Insider raised both the idea of hypocrisy and the possibility that academic dishonesty is widespread, even among the nation’s most prominent scholars.

    Ackman’s response, and the pressure that a well-connected person placed on the corporate owners of a journalism outlet, raised questions about the outlet’s independence.

    Business Insider and Axel Springer’s “liability just goes up and up and up,” Ackman said Sunday in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “This is what they consider fair, accurate and well-documented reporting with appropriate timing. Incredible.”

    Business Insider’s first article, on Jan. 4, noted that Ackman had seized on revelations about Gay’s work to back his efforts against her — but that the organization’s journalists “found a similar pattern of plagiarism” by Oxman. A second piece, published the next day, said Oxman had stolen sentences and paragraphs from Wikipedia, fellow scholars and technical documents in a 2010 doctoral dissertation at M.I.T.

    Ackman complained that it was a low blow to attack someone’s family in such a manner and said Business Insider reporters gave him less than two hours to respond to the accusations. He suggested an editor there was an anti-Zionist. Oxman was born in Israel.

    The business leader reached out in protest to board members at both Business Insider and Axel Springer. That led to Axel Springer telling The New York Times that questions had been raised about the motivation behind the articles and the reporting process, and the company promised to conduct a review.

    On Sunday, Business Insider CEO Barbara Peng issued a statement saying “there was no unfair bias or personal, political and/or religious motivation in pursuit of the story.”

    Peng said the stories were newsworthy and that Oxman, with a public profile as a prominent intellectual, was fair game as a subject. The stories were “accurate and the facts well-documented,” Peng said.

    “Business Insider supports and empowers our journalists to share newsworthy, factual stories with our readers, and we do so with editorial independence,” Peng wrote.

    Business Insider would not say who conducted the review of its work.

    Ackman said his wife admitted to four missing quotation marks and one missed footnote in a 330-page dissertation. He said the articles could have “literally killed” his wife if not for the support of her family and friends.

    “She has suffered severe emotional harm,” he wrote on X, “and as an introvert, it has been very, very difficult for her to make it through each day.”

    For her part, Gay wrote in the Times that those who campaigned to have her ousted “often trafficked in lies and ad hominem insults, not reasoned arguments.” Harvard’s first Black president said she was the subject of death threats and had “been called the N-word more times than I care to count.”

    There was no immediate comment Sunday from Nicholas Carlson, Business Insider’s global editor in chief. In a memo to his staff last weekend that was reported by The Washington Post, Carlson said he made the call to publish both of the stories and that he knew the process of preparing them was sound.

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  • Harvard President Warns Of A ‘Broader War’ Against ‘Pillars Of American Society’

    Harvard President Warns Of A ‘Broader War’ Against ‘Pillars Of American Society’

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    Claudine Gay ― the Harvard University president who announced her resignation this week amid a right-wing campaign accusing her of antisemitism and plagiarism ― said Thursday that her ouster is part of a “broader war” to undermine public faith in the “pillars of American society” like academia.

    Gay, who was Harvard’s first Black president and also serves as a professor of government and African American studies, penned an op-ed in The New York Times two days after she sent a letter to the Harvard community announcing she would step down as president and remain part of the faculty.

    “For weeks, both I and the institution to which I’ve devoted my professional life have been under attack,” she wrote in the Times. “My character and intelligence have been impugned. My commitment to fighting antisemitism has been questioned. My inbox has been flooded with invective, including death threats. I’ve been called the N-word more times than I care to count.”

    “My hope is that by stepping down I will deny demagogues the opportunity to further weaponize my presidency in their campaign to undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence, truth,” she continued.

    Claudine Gay of Harvard University testifies before the House education and workforce committee on Dec. 5 in Washington, D.C.

    Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images

    Gay’s resignation came after weeks of pressure on the university to punish the president for not directly answering a question from Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) about whether calls on campus for the genocide of Jewish students ― or even the use of controversial pro-Palestinian expressions like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” ― would violate Harvard’s rules.

    Gay, along with two other university presidents, said in a congressional hearing that the acceptability of any on-campus speech regarding the violence in Gaza would depend on the context. The remarks by the various presidents drew an immediate firestorm of criticism.

    In her op-ed, Gay acknowledged that she has “made mistakes,” citing her initial response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants against Israel. She wrote that during the congressional hearing, she should have condemned antisemitic behavior more forcefully. The Harvard Corporation, the school’s governing board, supported Gay during the controversy by saying she was defending the university’s academic freedom.

    More recently, Gay ― who was president for less than a year ― came under fire after right-wing voices accused her of plagiarizing other scholars in her own peer-reviewed academic writings on the significance of people from marginalized communities holding office in American politics.

    According to Gay, her research found that “when historically marginalized communities gain a meaningful voice in the halls of power, it signals an open door where before many saw only barriers,” resulting in a strengthened democracy.

    Harvard acknowledged some instances of inadequate citation in Gay’s work, but said that she quickly corrected them. Gay said the process of correcting duplications was “consistent with how I have seen similar faculty cases handled at Harvard.”

    “I have never misrepresented my research findings, nor have I ever claimed credit for the research of others,” she wrote on Thursday. “Moreover, the citation errors should not obscure a fundamental truth: I proudly stand by my work and its impact on the field.”

    The resignation makes Gay’s tenure the shortest of any Harvard president, and comes at a time when academic institutions increasingly face threats of censorship from mostly right-wing figures who seek to stifle speech from people who come from marginalized backgrounds.

    “It is not lost on me that I make an ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety about the generational and demographic changes unfolding on American campuses: a Black woman selected to lead a storied institution,” Gay wrote. She urged the public to be “more skeptical than ever of the loudest and most extreme voices in our culture.”

    The outgoing president also said that the campaign to push her out of her role was “merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society.”

    “Campaigns of this kind often start with attacks on education and expertise, because these are the tools that best equip communities to see through propaganda,” she wrote. “But such campaigns don’t end there. Trusted institutions of all types ― from public health agencies to news organizations ― will continue to fall victim to coordinated attempts to undermine their legitimacy and ruin their leaders’ credibility.”

    You can read Gay’s full op-ed here.

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  • How rich is Harvard? It’s bigger than the economies of 120 nations.

    How rich is Harvard? It’s bigger than the economies of 120 nations.

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    Harvard University isn’t only among the most prestigious U.S. institutions of higher learning — it’s also the richest. 

    Harvard and other elite schools have drawn fierce criticism in recent weeks for their handling of student protests related to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, with some alumni threatening to withdraw large donations and to blacklist students for what they characterize as antisemitic statements.

    That’s no idle threat. Ivy League colleges and universities like Stanford and MIT have amassed massive endowments, with wealthy alumni exerting considerable influence on university policy and even curricula. Harvard’s endowment, at more than $50 billion, is the biggest among U.S. universities and is larger than the GDP of more than 120 nations, including countries such as Tunisia, Bahrain and Iceland.

    With the war also playing out as a fight over the competing narratives that hold sway in Gaza and Israel, moneyed donors to elite U.S. schools have sought to use their financial clout to dictate the debate on university campuses. University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down as president only days after hedge fund manager Ross Stevens, a graduate of the institution’s Wharton business school, threatened to withdraw a $100 million donation following her congressional testimony last week in a hearing about antisemitism on college campuses. 

    Harvard on Tuesday said that its president, Claudine Gay, who has also became a lightning rod in the controversy, will stay in office after getting support from the university’s highest governing body and hundreds of faculty members. But she is likely to face tensions over the war 

    Harvard’s endowment in 2023

    Harvard’s endowment in fiscal year 2023 stood at $50.7 billion, down slightly from $50.9 billion the prior year, according to the most recent financial report from its endowment. 

    The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based school is the richest U.S. university, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, which based its rankings on 2021 endowment data.

    Universities, including Harvard, have typically built their endowments through two pathways: donations and investment gains. 

    Harvard noted that its endowment only returned 2.9% in fiscal year 2023 — far below its goal of 8%. But donations provided the university with 45% of its revenue through gifts and endowment income, signaling the importance of financial contributions from wealthy alumni. 

    Universities typically rely on their endowments to help fund operations and to provide financial aid to students, with Gay writing in the most recent financial report that Harvard provided more than $850 million in financial aid that year. 

    “Undergraduates from families with annual incomes below $85,000 are fully funded by the University — they pay nothing — and expected contributions for families with annual incomes between $85,000 and $150,000 max out at ten percent of annual income,” she wrote.

    Harvard tuition 2023

    Such financial aid would certainly be needed by families with annual income of less than $150,000, given that tuition and fees for the current academic year stands at $79,450.


    Fallout continues for university presidents after congressional hearing on campus antisemitism

    02:31

    By comparison, the cost to attend Harvard in 1975 was about $5,350, according to Business Insider, underlining the spiraling tuition in higher education nationwide.

    That means Harvard’s tuition has increased much faster than inflation — that $5,350 would today amount to roughly $30,000 if it had tracked the change in the Consumer Price Index over the last half century. Harvard isn’t alone in increasing tuition faster than inflation, with higher education in general outpacing the CPI.

    Harvard president’s salary

    Serving as Harvard’s president can be a lucrative job, with Gay earning $879,079 in 2021, when she was president-elect, according to the Harvard Crimson. Outgoing Harvard president Lawrence S. Bacow earned more than $1.3 million that year, it noted.

    Aimee Picchi

    Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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  • Claudine Gay To Stay On As Harvard President Despite Disastrous Congressional Testimony On Anti-Semitism

    Claudine Gay To Stay On As Harvard President Despite Disastrous Congressional Testimony On Anti-Semitism

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    Opinion

    Source: CBS Boston YouTube

    Harvard has announced that Claudine Gay will be staying on as president of the university despite her disastrous testimony before Congress last week in which she claimed that calling for the genocide of Jews would only violate her school’s bullying and harassment policies “depending on the context.”

    Harvard Board Stands By Gay

    CNN reported that after deliberating on Monday night, the school’s board known as the Harvard Corporation decided to allow Gay, who has been touted as the school’s first black president, to keep her position despite widespread calls for her removal in the wake of her testimony.

    “As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University,” read a statement signed by all board members, with the exception of Gay. “Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing.”

    “So many people have suffered tremendous damage and pain because of Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack, and the University’s initial statement should have been an immediate, direct, and unequivocal condemnation,” the board continued. “Calls for genocide are despicable and contrary to fundamental human values. President Gay has apologized for how she handled her congressional testimony and has committed to redoubling the University’s fight against antisemitism.”

    Related: Dr. Phil Rips U.S. Colleges As ‘Liberal Woke Hotbeds Fostering’ Antisemitism

    Rep. Elise Stefanik Fires Back

    House GOP Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has already fired back by blasting Harvard’s board for its “complete moral failure” in standing by Gay.

    “There is a reason why the testimony at the Education Workforce Committee garnered 1 billion views worldwide, and it’s because those university presidents made history by putting the most morally bankrupt testimony into the Congressional Record, and the world saw it,” Stefanik said, according to Fox News. “As a Harvard graduate, I’m reminded of Harvard’s motto, Veritas, which goes back – and it’s older than the founding of our country, it goes back to the 1640s. In addition, the motto was Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae – Truth for Christ and the Church.”

    “Larry Summers, who was president of Harvard when I was an undergrad, talked about the meaning of Veritas is divine truth, moral truth. Let me be clear. Veritas does not depend on the context,” Stefanik said. “This is a moral failure of Harvard’s leadership and higher education leadership at the highest levels, and the only change they have made to their code of conduct, where they failed to condemn calls for genocide of the Jewish people, the only update to the code of conduct is to allow a plagiarist as the president of Harvard.”

    New York Democratic Rep. Daniel Goldman also blasted Harvard for keeping Gay on as president, arguing that the school is not doing enough to protect its students from the rise of antisemitism on college campuses.

    “If they are unable to enforce their code of conduct, then they either need to get a new code of conduct or they need to get a new president,” Goldman said. “I hope there is a significant change at Harvard if Dr. Gay is going to stay.”

    Related: Virulent Antisemitism And The Rot At Our Universities

    University Of Pennsylvania President Resigns

    Liz Magill, who also testified before Congress last week, resigned as president of the University of Pennsylvania over the weekend after she received similar backlash to Gay.

    “It has been my privilege to serve as President of this remarkable institution. It has been an honor to work with our faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community members to advance Penn’s vital missions,” Magill said in a brief statement, according to NPR.

    “One down. Two to go,” Stefanik wrote on social media afterwards, referring to Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth. “In the case of @Harvard, President Gay was asked by me 17x whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard’s code of conduct. She spoke her truth 17x. And the world heard.”

    Daily Mail reported that in the wake of Gay’s testimony, Harvard has lost a staggering $1 billion in donations. Gay’s school board may be standing by her, but she is facing an uphill battle when it comes to winning back the respect of many members of the Harvard community, given how many calls came in for her firing.

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    James Conrad

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