The fight over D.E.I. in the C-suite is ongoing

Is Gay a Black President? An Analysis of Gay’s Disturbing Embarrassment in Harvard and How Artificial Intelligence Can Mitigate It

Gay, who was the first Black president of Harvard and focuses on Black politics, didn’t address the allegations in her resignation letter, which she submitted after consultation with the Harvard Corporation. She wrote that it has been distressing to have doubts cast on her commitment to confronting hate and to adhering to scholarly rigor, which are fundamental to who she is.

“Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am,” she wrote, “and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.”

The irony, Tomar said, is that Gay’s alleged failings are likely only now coming to light because of the endless amounts of data that gets fed into artificial intelligence programs, such as Chat GPT.

He predicts a slew of academic leaders will likely be outed in similar fashion. He says it’s the wrong thing to focus on those who are caught having violated an institution’s policies.

We might be able to retroactively find out what someone did in the 1990s. He asked if the person who was going to graduate next year was more important than what they were doing.

Precise Analysis of the Resignation of Claudine Gay, the President of Harvard University, after the Israel-Hamas War

The resignation of Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shocked many academics. Hundreds of faculty members had rushed to her defense after controversial testimony she gave before the US Congress about the university’s handling of antisemitism in response to the Israel-Hamas war. She resigned her position on January 2, after allegations of plagiarism in her scholarly work came to light.

Four of Gay’s published papers were found to have problems, according to a right-wing website.

The quality of the work should be high so that the supervisor has some responsibility for shepherding the student.

Additionally, Ph.D. dissertations go through several steps of verification, including being reviewed by a supervisor, an examination committee and peers.

Still, Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton, author of Plagiarism in Higher Education: Tackling Tough Topics in Academic Integrity, says allegations of plagiarism are still largely handled manually.

Tomar began his career as a professional cheater during this pre-internet time. “It was really, really easy to get away with Googling and cutting and pasting before educators were really hip to it,” he recalled.

Without the plagiarism detection software programs professors were encouraged to use their intuition if something appeared off with an assignment. They were urged to hold one-on-one meetings to help them assess a student’s grasp of the material.

The internet was not yet in its infancy when plagiarism Detection technology was not present. Physical libraries were still being used to conduct research. It wasn’t unusual for papers to be written out by hand, then typed into a computer or word processor. And the few software tools that eventually became available back then, were nowhere near as sophisticated as what exists today.

The alarm bells were not really raised 20 years ago according to Tomar, who writes The Complete Guide To Contract Cheating In Higher Education. “It’s a no-brainer to me that she was just sort of right ahead of the curve of detection at the time.”

Dave Tomar, a self-described “professional cheat” who spent about a decade ghost-writing academic papers for undergrads and post-doctoral students, said it’s easy to understand how Gay’s writing went undetected for so long.

Gay is not the first head of an academic institution unseated by allegations of plagiarism: Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned last year as Stanford’s president after an investigation found several academic reports he authored contained manipulated data. And in 2021, Robert Caslen resigned as president of the University of South Carolina after plagiarizing part of a speech.

There is more than enough information to go around now that Dr. Gay is out, and M. Elizabeth Magill resigned after the hearing. Her career, until last July a steady, brisk climb through faculty and administrative ranks to the pinnacle of American higher education, has become a punditic bonanza and a culture-war Rorschach test.

I Know Hamas is a terrorist organization, but I Am Sorry to admit I Am sorry I didn’t respond to the attacks of Oct. 7

Yes, I made mistakes. In my initial response to the atrocities of Oct. 7, I should have stated more forcefully what all people of good conscience know: Hamas is a terrorist organization that seeks to eradicate the Jewish state. I fell into a trap at a congressional hearing last month. I was silent on whether the calls for the genocide of Jewish people are offensive or not, and I would use every tool at my disposal to protect students from that kind of hate.

As I depart, I must offer a few words of warning. The campaign against me, was more than just one university and one leader. This was merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society. The best way to equip communities with propaganda is by attacking education and expertise, because these are the things that most people don’t know. 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. For opportunists driving cynicism about our institutions, there are no single victories that exhaust their zeal.

My goal is to deny demagogues the opportunity to further weaponize my presidency in their campaign to weaken Harvard’s ideals by stepping down.

The Fight Over D.E.I. in the C-suite: The Donaldson-Stephen-Epstein Correspondence Revisited

Others are pushing back. Mark Cuban challenged Musk on X, stating that D.E.I.’s principles are good for business.

I would like to encourage a broader caution at tense moments because the truth can be quickly and easily destroyed by the most extreme voices in our culture. They are often pursuing agendas that are self-serving and should involve more questions.

Sally Kornbluth, M.I.T.’s president who is facing calls to resign, announced four aims for the school, including better understanding of free speech on campus and ensuring the effectiveness of D.E.I. programs. The head of Harvard’s governing body is resisting calls for her to resign over the Gay controversy.

Several associates of Jeffrey Epstein are mentioned in new documents. The documents that were released as part of the order added context to the disgraced financier’s relationship with Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew of Britain. (Neither Clinton nor Trump has been accused of committing crimes; Andrew settled a lawsuit by an accuser.) There weren’t many new smoking guns in the documents.

Source: The Fight Over D.E.I. in the C-suite

SpaceX fired employees critical of Elon Musk, and a high-profile university president apologized for his actions in the wake of the Hamas attacks

SpaceX illegally fired employees critical of Elon Musk, a regulator finds. According to the National Labor Relations Board, eight workers were wrongly dismissed because they wrote a letter calling on the company to distance itself from Musk. The case will head to an administrative judicial hearing in March.

Xerox will cut thousands of jobs. The company will lay off 15 percent of its global work force as it pivots away from selling photocopiers and towards business services. Shares in Xerox fell more than 12 percent on Wednesday on the news.

Although plagiarism experts consulted by Nature say there are legitimate concerns about how and whether Gay cited the work of others in her scholarly papers, some of her supporters have continued to stand by her side, arguing that the alleged infractions are minor and that the scrutiny is rooted in racism and political opportunism.

“Frankly, this should have happened before she was hired,” Roig says. Would you want the president of a prestigious university to have committed all of these sins?

According to Ryan Enos, a political scientist at Harvard, there is no question that racism played a part but that the allegations of plagiarism cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, Enos adds, “she was essentially run out by a mob before we got to have any kind of transparent and independent investigation”.

Gay will now return to her role as a faculty member at Harvard, and provost Alan Garber will serve as the interim president while the board seeks a permanent replacement.

Gay was the second president of an Ivy League university to leave in the last month. Elizabeth Magill resigned from the university less than a week after testifying on Capitol Hill, along with Harvard’s Gay and the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All three faced questions from Republicans in the US House of Representatives on 5 December regarding their handling of antisemitism on campus in the wake of the 7 October attacks by Hamas on Israel, and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza. Their legalistic responses to freedom of speech sparked a lot of opposition, including from important university donors.

On 2 January, the board accepted Gay’s resignation. Although Gay acknowledged her mistakes, it was determined that her resignation was in the best interest of the university. The board denounced the attacks on Gay’s character, including “repugnant and in some cases racist vitriol directed at her through disgraceful emails and phone calls”.