The founder of the controversial 1619 Project has accused its most vocal critic of calling for Harvard president Claudine Gay’s firing to “pretend” to be concerned about antisemitism – calling it a cover to further promote “racial division.”
Nikole Hannah-Jones argued that some of Gay’s harshest critics used his comments about the massacre at a congressional hearing last week as an “opening” to oust the black leader as part of their campaign against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts on campus.
“They’re using pseudonyms to pretend that this is about concerns about antisemitism — which, of course, is something we should all be concerned about,” he told CNN’s Abby Phillip Wednesday night.
“It really advances their propaganda campaign against racial equality.”
Hannah-Jones said it would be unfair to suggest that Gay has survived calls for her to resign simply because of her race — despite claims that she was hired solely because of the university’s DEI initiative.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, founder of the controversial 1619 Project has claimed the most vocal critic who called for the sacking of Harvard president Claudine Gay is “pretending” to be concerned about antisemitism. Getty Images for the Recording Academy
“It’s racism. I mean, we have — no one has produced a shred of evidence to show that the only qualification that a Gay President has is that he’s a black woman. That’s insulting. It is against logic,” he said.
The scholar then highlighted Harvard’s historical racial quotas and noted that for 370 years, the Ivy League institution has appointed only white men as its president.
“When you think about the fact that Harvard, the oldest university in the country, has had a clear racial quota for 370 years to hire only white men for president, it’s ludicrous to think of the first black woman to follow that unbroken line of white racism . quotas are people who don’t deserve it,” Hannah-Jones said.
“I mean, this is the beauty of how racism works.
“If you’re black and you don’t achieve, if you don’t succeed at the highest echelon, it’s because you’re lazy and you’re not smart enough. If you make it and you make it and you rise to the top of your profession, it’s because you don’t deserve it.”
Hannah-Jones concluded by saying that the call for Gay to be fired was a distraction, as she called out reporter Chris Rufo — who found several instances where the Harvard president appeared to have pulled heavily from his 1997 Ph.D. thesis directly violates Harvard’s policy of academic integrity — as “not a serious person”.
Hannah-Jones argued that some of Gay’s harshest critics used his comments about the massacre at a congressional hearing last week as an “opening” to oust the black leader as part of their campaign against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts on campus. David McGlynn
“He’s someone who’s trying to attack what he calls DEI, but really any effort to address racial inequality,” he said.
“He clearly said he was doing ‘propaganda work,’ and the fact that we’re all talking about it means he’s succeeding.”
He also emphasized Gay’s credentials and linked criticism of him to a wider campaign against initiatives to tackle racial inequality.
“He’s clearly qualified,” Hannah-Jones claimed, without elaborating.
“And I’m really at a loss to try to figure out what race has to do with the criticism that he didn’t handle protests on his campus properly.
“They just see this as an opportunity to sew up the racial divide and continue their campaign to try to attack any effort around diversity and anti-racism.”
Nikole Hannah-Jones, founder of the controversial 1619 Project, insisted on CNN Wednesday night that “it’s racist” to ask Harvard President Claudine Gay to lose her job. CNN
“I hope we will see courage in facing this political campaign,” he added.
Gay first came under fire last week when he, former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth testified that it depends on context whether calls for genocide violate their school’s code of conduct.
Subsequently, Gay was accused of lifting the work of other scholars in his 1997 Ph.D. thesis and the writing of four papers published between 1993 and 2017 that lacked proper attribution, the Washington Free Beacon found.
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The outlet said scholars it consulted agreed Gay had “violated core principles of academic integrity” and said they had found 10 instances where Gay had retracted a sentence or paragraph and changed only a word or two.
Harvard’s president has denied the allegations, but in a statement on Tuesday, the Harvard Corporation – the Ivy League’s highest governing body – said officials became aware of the plagiarism allegations in late October and initiated an independent review.
“On December 9, Fellows reviewed the results, which revealed several examples of inadequate citations,” the Corporation said.
“Although the analysis found no violations of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct, President Gay proactively requested four corrections in two articles to include citations and quotation marks omitted from the original publication.”
However, the Harvard Corporation expressed its support for Gay to retain his position on campus.
“Our extensive discussions confirm our conviction that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and address the very serious societal issues we face,” the group said.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
