How to be an Antiracist author Ibram X. Kendi says ‘racist mobs’ are to blame for Claudine Gay’s resignation from Harvard and says she wouldn’t have faced same plagiarism probe if she was white

Controversial academic and author Ibram X. Kendi has claimed that Claudine Gay was forced to resign as president of Harvard because she is black.

Gay, 53, said Tuesday she resigned after weeks of criticism over the university's handling of anti-Semitism and claims she plagiarized essays.

She was initially in the spotlight for her slow response to students on campus justifying the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, then poured fuel on the fire when she wavered when asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews was hate speech.

She found her academic record under scrutiny, and investigative journalists unearthed 50 examples of plagiarism in her work – with some taking entire paragraphs almost verbatim.

Gay is the second Ivy League president to resign in the past month, following congressional testimony on anti-Semitism on December 5. Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, resigned on December 9.

But Kendi, author of the 2019 best-selling book “How to be an Antiracist,” claimed her departure was due to racism.

“Racist gangs will not stop until they drive all black people out of positions of power and influence that do not reinforce the structure of racism,” he said.

“What these racist gangs are doing should be obvious to any reporter who cares about truth or justice, as opposed to conflict and clicks.

“When a racist mob attacks a Black person, it finds an apparently legitimate reason for the attack, which allows it to gain popular support and credibility, and allows the growing mob to deny that they are attacking the person in this way because the person is Black .

“This is how anti-black racist attacks are justified. The apparently legitimate reason, in this latest case at Harvard, is mainly academic misconduct or plagiarism. The question for judging whether this was a racist attack is not whether Dr. Gay has been guilty of misconduct.

“The question is whether all these people would have investigated, surveilled, harassed, written about, and attacked her in the same way if the president of Harvard in this case had been White.

'I. Think. Not.'

Gay, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, became the first black person to lead Harvard when she took over as president on July 1.

She studied economics at Stanford, where she became a tenured professor after receiving her Ph.D. in Harvard government. She returned to Harvard after a stint at Stanford, becoming a professor of government and African and African American studies. She became dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 2018 and was known as an advocate for hiring more diverse people at the university.

On December 10, as she faced criticism for her testimony in Congress, conservative activist Christopher Rufo published allegations in his newsletter that she had plagiarized parts of her 1997 dissertation.

The Washington Free Beacon subsequently published their own investigation into Gay's work, but on December 12, the Harvard Corporation – which runs the university – announced that she had been investigated and cleared.

Some noted the speed of the investigation: most last six to 12 months, but Gay was acquitted within weeks.

The Corporation said some of her academic work would be 'corrected', but her job was safe.

Still, the accusations of plagiarism kept coming and students began complaining that they would be punished for similar violations.

Most of the people she plagiarized said they weren't concerned about it and said there was a limit to the number of ways you could word certain political science terminology. But others copied them, and some within the university said they were concerned.

On Tuesday, Gay resigned, saying racism played a role.

In a letter announcing her resignation, she said it was “troubling that doubt has been cast on my commitments to fight hate and uphold scientific rigor — two fundamental values ​​that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to to be subjected to personal criticism. attacks and threats fueled by racial animosity.”

She added, “It has become clear that it is in Harvard's best interests that I resign so that our community can move through this moment of extraordinary challenge.”

Kendi agreed that racism forced Gay to leave.

“It's not hard to figure out why the racist crowd is now cheering and saying 'go woke go broke' and President Gay was not qualified and the 'tide is turning against woke and DEI' and 'this is the beginning of the end of wake up,” he said.

Kendi has faced his own issues with the DEI movement.

Last year, the institute he founded at Boston University – the Center for Antiracist Research – fired half its staff and faced an investigation into whether its $50 million budget had been mismanaged.

Whistleblowers within the center indicated that they were concerned about the state of affairs within the institute and felt that management was inadequate. There were also questions about what the institute had actually yielded for the investment.

Kendi was acquitted in November, saying he was under investigation because of the stereotype that black people can't handle money. He said he was excited to get back to work.

However, Rufo said he was “glad she was gone.”

“Instead of taking responsibility for minimizing anti-Semitism, committing serial plagiarism, intimidating the free press and damaging the institution, she calls her critics racist,” Rufo said on X.

“This is the poison” of the diversity, equity and inclusion ideology, he said.