Claudine Gay, the embattled president of Harvard University, resigned January 2. But as a tenured professor, she will continue teaching at Harvard. (In academia, administrative positions are often separated from teaching positions. To resign from one does not preclude retaining the other–even if the reason for the resignation was moral failure).
What led to her resignation is worth a brief recap. And what we can learn from it is worth our attention.
Accusations of plagiarism
Prior to October 7, the academic community was already swirling with rumors that Gay had plagiarized passages in her dissertation. And reviews of her published works revealed more and more evidence of plagiarized pieces and passages. By some counts, up to fifty separate incidences were uncovered.
Plagiarism, if you are not aware, is an egregious act of intentional dishonesty. Simply defined, plagiarism is the act of taking someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. No credit given for the source.
In most professions, it’s recognized as unethical. In academics, it’s nearly a crime.
Students are flunked for it. Preachers are vilified for it. Politicians resign for it. Singers are sued for it. And professors can be fired for it.
Can be. Sometimes. Unless, of course, ideologies trump accountability.
Then, while Gay was answering accusations of plagiarism, October 7 happened.
Then, October 7
On October 7, Hamas terrorists slaughtered over 1,100 Israelis and fled back to their home base in Gaza. Israel, of course, retaliated, and continues to take the war to Hamas.
Like fire ants boiling to the surface, students at Harvard and other elite campuses rallied in protest of Israel’s actions and in favor of Hamas and Palestinians, calling for violence against their Jewish peers (recent surveys show that a majority of Gen Z sides with Palestinians).
Only six months into the president’s office, Claudine Gay suddenly found herself in the center of another controversy.
She and University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill were called to testify before Congress December 5 and to account for their failure to condemn the rampant antisemitism on the campuses they lead.
Equivocating before Congress
During the hearing, Rep. Elise Stefanik asked Gay, “At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?”
Dr. Gay equivocated by responding, “It can be, depending on the context.”
Stefanik pressed Harvard’s highest leader. She asked her the same question again and again, requesting a direct answer of “yes” or “no.”
And continually, Dr. Gay declined to give an objective, absolute answer. She waffled and equivocated, holding to her “truth” that whether or not allowing students to advocate violence against a select group of their peers violated any code of conduct at Harvard had to be considered in “context.”
Shortly afterward, Magill resigned as president of Pennsylvania and Gay apologized for not being more specific. But it was too late. The damage was done—publicly and permanently.
What we can learn from this
The dust hasn’t settled and won’t for a while. While it is fresh before us, I want to offer four takeaways from the case of Claudine Gay.
- One of these things is just like the other
At first, it may seem that Gay’s cavalier attitude toward plagiarism and her inability to condemn antisemitism are unrelated. Not true. They are related at the deepest level.
See, avoiding plagiarism requires a commitment to honesty. And a commitment to honesty requires a belief that some behaviors are universally ethical or unethical, moral or immoral. That is, certain behaviors are always right, and others are always wrong.
For the same reason she practiced plagiarism, she could not condemn antisemitism. She is unwilling to concede ethical absolutes for herself, so she refuses to apply them at Harvard.
Takeaway #1: Small ethical concessions always lead to bigger, more brazen moral failures. And who you are in private will eventually show up in public (Luke 16:10, 8:17).
- The dismal condition of leadership
In one way, I sympathize with Claudine Gay. It’s a leader’s worst nightmare. No time to gain your pace or prove your qualifications, and then a crisis is imposed on you. You didn’t make it happen. It came to you. And like it or not, you must respond.
But how a leader responds in a crisis is the true test of leadership. Those are the times that a leader demonstrates the character and the capacity to lead.
We get that. We know that a failure in leadership is usually a failure of character, and it started long before that leader came to the office. The failures of Claudine Gay and Liz Magill and so many leaders like them—in politics, in academics, in education, in ministry, and so on—illustrate that leadership results from character.
And leaders must have courage in their character. It’s the courage to stand for objective, absolute truth, and the unwillingness to water down the facts in order to appease powerful people, misguided students, or even the majority of the culture (James 4:17).
Takeaway #2: When someone rises to levels of leadership, there should be corresponding levels of proven character. And the times your character is most obvious are the times you must stand for the truth (Acts 5:29).
- Accountability matters–for everyone.
Some people shouting on social media claim that Gay was railroaded or forced out because she is a black woman. Ironically, that in itself is racist and sexist. It assumes that she should not be held accountable in the same way people of other races should be, or in the same way that men should be.
But we should all be held accountable for our actions. True accountability is no respecter of race or sex or education or economics. And refusing to hold someone accountable for their actions diminishes their humanity by assuming they cannot do better.
This loss of accountability fosters irresponsibility. Accountability holds everyone to the same standards. And the lack of it provides openings for the worst kinds of behavior.
Takeaway #3: So, first, hold yourself accountable. And in every organization, hold leaders accountable for their actions. Everyone is better for it (Luke 17:3).
- Colleges are even worse than we thought.
Developments on campuses since October 7 have been shocking, but not surprising. What has simmered in the classrooms for decades is now marching on the quad.
Major universities are suffering from moral erosion. Indoctrination has supplanted education as the purpose for many of these universities.
Harvard serves as a unique cautionary tale. Once a Christian university founded to educate pastors, modernism crept in and eventually a secular worldview displaced the biblical worldview in the academics at Harvard.
The drift continued. And now Harvard has altogether lost its moorings from truth. Modernist liberalism has caved to the advance of postmodern relativism and pragmatism.
Takeaway #4: Remember, there is no such thing as ideological neutrality. Not in academics, and not in your personal life. Your fundamental beliefs inform your actions, so always be sure to cultivate biblical beliefs and a biblical worldview (Rom. 12:1-2, 2 Tim. 2:15).
And if you start to slide, catch yourself before you are too far gone. Because when you drift from the truth or choose to reject it, something else takes its place.
And it’s usually far worse than you imagined.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and discipline.
Prov. 1:7