155 Comments

The fact that Claudine Gay still gets to maintain a position with the faculty of Harvard and keep her $900,000 salary doesn’t sit well with me. With her ideology, she should be nowhere near education and should seek a new career.

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You are correct. However, we are a very long way from destroying DEI and this victory is one giant step forward. We must not let “perfect” get in the way of progress. And we must continue working towards the decimation of DEI. Many kudos to Christopher Rufo and those who chose to risk their well being by exposing this disgusting fraud.

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Yes, let’s count it as a win, but realize that there is still much work to do.

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I certainly agree with you that this was a win, although not a perfect one. At this point we take what we can get.

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Agreed, but at least we on the right can savor her humiliation of being forced to step down from the presidency of Harvard. There's the added bonus of her and her peers knowing she held the "shortest presidency ever," as well. She might be screaming RACISM! to everyone within earshot, but Claudine Gay has to live with knowing that while she met "DEI standards," she ultimately failed on MERIT... and the whole world knows it.

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Maybe she's good at teaching undergraduate Political Science, but I doubt it. Gay will probably be assigned graduate seminars while graduate students continue to do the run-of-the mill teaching. What percentage of tenured Harvard faculty teach undergraduates, anyway?

Awarding her a writing/research sabbatical would be bad PR, so she may have to wait a year or two before getting that little plum. And she can write on a subject that she wouldn't need to plagiarize in order to be authoritative: an autobiography chock-a-block full of oppression anecdotes, her narrative "truth" that will gratify, encourage, and put to sleep dozens of sycophants and hundreds of unfortunate students who will be forced to read it for course credit.

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In a perfect world, she'd probably be picking up the litter and trash in Harvard Yard. But this is not a perfect world and the real point is to expose the fraudulent nature of the oppressor/oppressed color-based leadership narrative. At least as to Gay herself, that has been accomplished. $900K is not going to empower here other than to get an EV and a new house.

It is a long climb to overturn the popular narrative that has captured so much of the elites institutions that c pontyrol what the public sees. This is a step.

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She'll be a big red clown nose for that institution, as long as she's around.

Like Trump is for your party, right now!

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Big difference: Trump is getting his President's job back, and Gay isn't.

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Rank as they are, Gay's faction at least has the sense to drop a proven loser. You evidently lack it utterly.

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I will vote for whoever the Republican nominee for POTUS is. The Republicans are being given a meaningful choice in their primary, the Democrats are not. Which side is "authoritarian"?

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Barring more fraud in 2024.

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Look, either the guy lost, or he was too incompetent to prevent the "fraud" you cling to.. Either way, he's a L-O-S-E-R.. Couldn't even pull off a simple self-coup. Good to see you already coming up with excuses when he loses again.

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Admittedly he should have done more to fight election fraud. But that certainly doesn't justify the Democrats' engaging in the fraud itself.

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MAGA!!!

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"Honk honk" says the clown! Oh very funny! Keep at it! They're rolling in the aisles! Oh, watch out for that pie!

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I think it’s unsustainable. I may be wrong but I wouldn’t be surprised to see her move on to a think tank or some other job within a year. The move to keep her on staff is both face saving and perhaps contract driven. I’d bet the money guys at Harvard are working their sources trying to find her a quiet move into the private sector.

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That's my bet too.

(And that's a great book you got your name from!)

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What if Claudine is scheduled to 'teach' a class and nobody signs up?? (Harvard whistleblowers, let us know when it happens.)

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That would be great, but it's not going to happen. Remember the 34 Harvard student organizations that came out in favor of Hamas?

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I’ve been reading in some other areas and came across the suggestion that Harvard usually doesn’t move as quickly as it did with Gay’s resignation and to be on the lookout for Gay to activate a golden parachute, probably summer of 2024, to another job at a lesser university. I’m keeping an open mind and eyes peeled to see if that happens.

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Much more like to be an NGO like the Ford Foundation, rather than an academic job. The plagiarism thing really is a damper on the latter.

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The salary is likely contractual. That is, when she was hired as President, she was likely guaranteed X years of the President's salary (X=3? 5?), much like a football coach at a Power 5 school gets X years of guaranteed salary when first hired. There is likely a "for cause" firing clause in her contract that would allow Harvard to terminate her without salary if she did something sufficiently egregiously bad (think sexual harrassment or the like), but Gay would take that to court, raise a big stink, and very likely win. Note that many of the scholars she plagiarized are on Team DEI, and are saying, hey, that's not plagiarism! So it would be dueling experts in court, and the burden of proof would be on Harvard to show that the firing "cause" was legit. Harvard's odds here are not good, and they know it. So she keeps the tenured professorship and X-0.5 years of the President's salary.

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She may be quietly moved out later when some consulting firm or other school offers her a position.

It would be nice to see the Harvard people push for her PhD to be revoked, and more power to them if they can, but the masses will be satisfied with her losing the President position.

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Have been listening to CR's America's Cultural Revolution (Audio). Never heard of Herbert Marcuse before. As I am slowly grasping the message to us all, one thing I realize is that this has been a coordinated effort to confuse and change how Americans think. It has been going on for a long time. Claudine Gay is just the tip of the iceberg of those who shouldn't ever be around our education system.

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Jan 4·edited Jan 4Liked by Christopher F. Rufo

Truth has inherent power. Does Politico even know what truth is anymore? David Roberts’ quote “We are all Rufo's bitches.” should be framed as a trophy momento alongside Gay’s presidential portrait.

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author

Too funny.

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Brilliant! Godspeed, Christopher Rufo! Beware attempted character assassinations and other bogus attacks from the Left, including Soros-funded lawfare. You are now a prime target of the cultural Marxists, racialists, anarchists and globalists who want to destroy America.

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founding

Rich, IMHO, let them. It would make Chris stronger because the hate-i-crats cannot do that without giving Chris huge publicity.

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founding

The resignation of Claudine Gay was an impressive achievement that only a few weeks ago I couldn't believe could happen. Bravo Christopher Rufo!

To boot, the academic humiliation of Claudine Gay, described last month by the Harvard Board as "a scholars' scholar" and now routinely described as a serial plagiarizer with a mediocre research record to begin with. Well done!

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You upheld Harvard's moto "Veritas", better than the institution itself.

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The full motto is: "Veritas Christo et ecclesiae," that is, "Truth for Christ and the church."

(https://www.answers.com/movies-and-television/What_is_Harvard_University_motto_and_what_does_it_mean)

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founding

Your work is very heartening, Chris. I’ve stood up to bullies for years, so I have firsthand experience that courage is contagious. I can’t thank you enough for doing this.

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Ah! Let the contagion spread!

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My first reaction was to feel nervous at your transparency, until I reminded myself that the opposition has been doing this for years more-or-less covertly; you're not giving away any trade secrets. I love the didactic element in your activism. May your courageous commitment to truth be contagious.

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founding

He’s doing the right thing. I’ve wrecked events by openly talking about the purpose of critical theory, etc. The purpose is revolution, to overthrow the state. I’ve been on the receiving end of attacks. They think I’m going to be ashamed, but instead, I brazenly explain what I’m doing and am proud of it. The radicals don’t know what to do with that.

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founding

And others learn. Chris is absolutely on the right track.

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Revealing how it was done is a double fake that causes the media to second guess itself during the next DEI scandal.

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Oh, the sweet irony of Harvard which so earnestly defended affirmative action all the way to its demise at the Supreme Court has now become a national laughing stock precisely because of its affirmative action hiring of its plagiarizing president. Now, at least the most obvious example of the malignancy has been excised.

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The Left despises any TRUTH, particularly when it is out of their control.

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This! "Rufo: My primary objective is to eliminate the DEI bureaucracy in every institution in America and to restore truth rather than racialist ideology as the guiding principle of America."

May guiding students to seek the truth no longer feel like a subversive thing to say!

(I hope this got through to the chucklehead who ridiculed me at a faculty meeting for teaching our students (mostly Chinese internationals and serial, cultural plagiarizers) to paraphrase properly!)

Excellent work!

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And you keep up your good work as well!

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Yes!!

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Many kudos to Christopher Rufo and those who chose to risk their well being by exposing this disgusting fraud.

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Please keep hammering away at gender ideology. I don’t think the message has quite gotten through!

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Help us defeat gender ideology in California:

https://protectkidsca.com

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As soon as i found out you were the driving force in getting this FRAUD thrown out of its ill gotten position I paid for a subscription to your stack! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK! ❤️❤️❤️

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Until Proven Innocent was published in 2007. That's a long time ago in political terms. There's a big contingent that just doesn't want to hear these arguments because their self esteem is wrapped up in dogooderism based on the tenets of DEI. And as any Mom can confirm, guilt is a powerful motivator and remains a significant lever on majority, normie populations. I hope Rufo's success here isn't just a one off.

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The first inkling I had that my lefty/progressive inclinations were wrong was when it occurred to me, “I hate do-gooders.” They do nothing but pave the way to Hell.

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founding

Andy... you are so right. IMHO, to refine it more, doing good is okay, but only if it is on your own dime. And virtue signaling is a bad behavior - like bragging, back-stabbing, and bitchiness. They all lead to bad outcomes.

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Great work Chris. What an awesome interview. Thanks for engaging with non-conservative outlets. Such clear thinking. I would love to know more about what you mean and how you "smuggled the narrative into the left-wing media." I love supporting your work.

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The truth or facts to the left is krypton to them. It has to be avoided at all costs

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founding

Perhaps we need to use the term far-left instead of left since the center-left is being persecuted and cancelled and sidelined by these hate-i-crats too. We may not share equal values with the center-left but the center left does share our respect for truth (even if they have been shamed into keeping quiet or looking the other way).

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Maybe consider giving up the "left" vs "right" politival divide and just think of the divide between "right" and "wrong". This view of political spectrum derives from 18th century France, "left" and right" also mean "decent" and "awkward" in French. Works in pretty much every language.

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founding

Interesting thought. Surely matches what most conservatives believe. It does feel there are the irrational and the rational. Interestingly enough we have become the realists and naturalists (believing in what is right, nature, truth, good vs evil, real generosity vs virtue signaling, etc.) whereas the extreme left believes in all kinds of wrong things, including artificial sexes, artificial goodness and evil based on their oppressor/oppressed model, artificial virtue, artificial enemies, artificial poverty (from millionaire politicians and journalists posing as poor and humble), and artificial victimhood to explain everything from criminality, to murder, to laziness, to terrorism, and other artificial truths.

There is one common denominator -- their desire to virtue signal their righteousness (talk the talk) without without any personal sacrifice - including putting themselves in jeopardy by stating an unpopular position even when it is right.

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