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6 | JANUARY 18 • 2024
J
N
opinion
Personal responsibility and moral courage:
Claudine Gay’s failings as a leader
C
ourage is what it
takes to stand up and
speak; courage is also
what it takes to sit down and
listen.”
When Winston Churchill
spoke these words, little did
he imagine
that a future,
ousted president
of Harvard
University
hypocritically
would stake a
claim to courage
in her parting
blow in the New
York Times.
The irony being that she
failed as a leader because of a
complete dearth of moral and
professional courage.
Wednesday, the New York
Times published an essay by
former Harvard president
Claudine Gay entitled, “What
Just Happened at Harvard
is Bigger Than Me.” (Being
Ellen, I must begin by
correcting her grammar. The
title ought to be “Bigger Than
I.” #sorrynotsorry.)
Substantively, it is a
wonder of a piece, vacillating
between the whine of a
generation lacking personal
accountability to accusatory,
hypocritical claims that
extremist ideologues are
attacking and undermining
higher education and “trusted
institutions” for their own
nefarious purposes. She
swings from claiming courage
and belief in her work and
her theories to complaining
that her ouster occurred
because “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.”
She acknowledges that she
“made mistakes” in her initial
statement after Oct. 7, in her
congressional testimony, in
citations to her scholarly body
of work. Despite recognizing
those mistakes, she cannot see
how or why they justify her
ouster. She seems to believe
she deserves the space to make
grave, public, institutionally
humiliating mistakes without
consequence. Bravo, Liz
Magill, for going quietly into
the night and sparing us such
sanctimonious bitterness.
Boy, has Gay missed the
point. This manic essay serves
as definitive evidence that she
needed to go. She really still
does not get it.
People do not trust these
institutions anymore because
they demonstrate daily a
terrifying lack of moral
compass. When students
chant, “From the River to the
Sea,” promoting genocide and
the wiping from the map of
a UN member state, while
simultaneously being unable
to identify the river or the
sea in question, trust in the
PURELY COMMENTARY
Ellen
Ginsberg
Simon
The Times
of Israel