‘A bully’: the billionaire who led calls for Claudine Gay’s Harvard exit
US hedge fund manager Bill Ackman posts 4,000-word screed decrying ‘racism against white people’ after Gay’s departure
amp.theguardian.com
Defining free speech
- Thread starter twofbyc
- Start date
amp.theguardian.com
Or ... The irony here is that people blindly support Gay because she is black, and they assume that the only reason she can succeed is if the policymakers put their thumb on the scale to reward one for their melanin content. An additional irony, they don't see this as racism.
Merit triggers a lot of folks.
Absolutely. It is extremely amusing that those who are political junkies and on this board 24/7 are just discovering that politicians engage in demagoguery. But, only one side, of course. Geez, people! They are politicians. If they are in front of a camera, they are spewing populist talking points and engaging in demagoguery.
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Yep. I saw this first hand while attending George Washington University. University administrators tend to be money-grubbing cowards. They'll tolerate a lot for a dollar from a despot.
You are guessing here. We have no concrete evidence which says Gay was hired because she is black. Until that evidence surfaces, the proper thing to do is to assume the woman was hired on merit.
My last two hires were a black woman and a Hispanic woman. Both were the best candidates for the job and both have been excellent hires. They were hired on merit, not because they were minorities.
If Gay cannot fulfill the duties of the president of Harvard, she should absolutely be let go.
Where you and I differ is in whether or not Gay was hired because she was the best candidate for the job. I haven't seen anything that tells me she wasn't fully qualified.
FWIW, I don't consider myself a political junkie. I am very definitely a dental nerd and a guitar junkie. That's where I spend most of my time.
You are guessing as well. So, the proper thing to do is not have an opinion one way or the other until we know. The left and right are like porch dogs thinking they see a squirrel and are running off howling into the woods. My comments are more with finding amusement at the tribal response to all this.
I would hope so. But, there is often a strong political agenda in academia.
Agreed. Including her teaching job.
Well, I've spent enough time in academia to see how things work. I've seen it happen in the private sector some and it is the norm in the government sector. And her moral cowardice and college president-speak on antisemitism cost her employer hundreds of millions of dollars. And she's accused of plagiarizing half her journal articles and her dissertation, but we are told to be skeptical about her is racist. That's a nice privilege.
Anyone making the claim she was hired for any reason other than the board thought she was the best person for the job has the burden of proof.
What I notice missing is any reference to any materials that would provide evidence for his assertions. There is literally nothing there to back his claims.
And the burden is on him to provide evidence for his claims.
c’mon now, he was forced to bring these allegations because children are being allowed to identify as cats and use litter boxes at school. /s
Nope. People are allowed to have opinions that don't have to conform to your constructs.
What a joke of an article‘A bully’: the billionaire who led calls for Claudine Gay’s Harvard exit
US hedge fund manager Bill Ackman posts 4,000-word screed decrying ‘racism against white people’ after Gay’s departure
With her actions she provided him all the evidence he needed....along with the overboard DEI culture that exists @ Harvard. One of my best friends was a Harvard grad -- and former professor -- and he deplored what had happened there over the last couple of decades.
Personal experience is not the right kind of evidence ... or something.
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The good news for Gay is that she now has time to finish a play she been tinkering with. It's a five-act tragedy. The working title is "MacBeth."
That is certainly true. Always been that way. As is the belief by some that only their opinion is valid. Always been that way. Tribalism and whatnot.
Rufo and Stefanik are who they are.The letter I posted is not Gay's resignation letter, rather an OpEd she sent to the NYT. Is it possible you were thinking I posted the resignation letter? The oped was published about an hour before I posted it here. I would be surprised to learn you have a subscription the the Times.
Write it off as "president speak" if you like; I thought Gay's words were meaningful.
You implied earlier that Gay's career was not ruined. The OpEd addresses how she feels this has been an attack on her character. Her integrity has been impugned.
As for whether or not she was forced out by donors withholding donations, you may be right. However, the way I'm seeing things, none of that happened without the political grandstanding by Stephanik in Congress and the right wing misinformation machine. Christopher Rufo and Stefanik are claiming victory. Rufo tweeted, "Scalped." This isn't on the donors even if they were the muscle that removed Gay from her position.
Correct. I was speaking of her resignation letter.The letter I posted is not Gay's resignation letter, rather an OpEd she sent to the NYT. Is it possible you were thinking I posted the resignation letter? The oped was published about an hour before I posted it here. I would be surprised to learn you have a subscription the the Times.
Write it off as "president speak" if you like; I thought Gay's words were meaningful.
You implied earlier that Gay's career was not ruined. The OpEd addresses how she feels this has been an attack on her character. Her integrity has been impugned.
As for whether or not she was forced out by donors withholding donations, you may be right. However, the way I'm seeing things, none of that happened without the political grandstanding by Stephanik in Congress and the right wing misinformation machine. Christopher Rufo and Stefanik are claiming victory. Rufo tweeted, "Scalped." This isn't on the donors even if they were the muscle that removed Gay from her position.
It read like a politician caught in bed with with a prostitute who says, "I'm stepping down to spend more time with my family."
For the record neither I nor (I dare say) anybody in academia thinks Claudine Gay tolerates people proposing genocide for Jews, but, I say again, I do not believe in "safe spaces" on college campuses. If someone says something you disagree with, get a better argument. We do not shut down contrary opinions because you "don't feel safe." Grow up.
If Gay had simply said, "We believe in free speech on campus, whether it makes some feel uncomfortable or not," she would have had my approval.
But if Gay feels her integrity has been impugned, that is because she is guilty of intellectual theft. She is a thief. Maybe her academic misdeeds would never have come to light if she had not made herself a lightning rod, but they did come to light. Sorry, suffer the consequences.
She is still a tenured professor at Harvard, so she'll be just fine.
And, no I do not give any of my money to the NYT. They do some exceptional work from time to time, sprinkled amongst a lot of egregiously biased ideological garbage, so I'll read the free stuff when I can, but they do not get a cent of my money.
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