The New York Post reported on Dec. 22 that former President Barack Obama "secretly pushed Harvard" to retain Claudine Gay, whose catastrophic, six-month presidency ended with a Jan. 2 resignation.
The failings of the 53-year-old Gay include multiple allegations of plagiarism in her skimpy scholarly work. Also included: her tardiness and equivocation in condemning the antisemitism and anti-Zionism that has exploded on the Ivy League campus since Oct. 7, when Hamas Palestinian terrorists launched a genocidal war against Israel.
The Post drew upon a Jewish Insider article that focused on Harvard alum Penny Pritzker, Obama's Commerce Secretary between 2013 and 2017, and current senior fellow of the Harvard Corp., the university's 12-person governing body.
Until her resignation, Gay, recipient of a political-science doctorate from Harvard, was a member of the university's governing body. But she has been replaced by interim President Alan Garber, a physician and Stanford alum, with three degrees in economics from Harvard.
The Jewish Insider also points out that Pritzker "was one of Barack Obama's earliest and most important financial backers," whose friendship began in the early 1990s.
The billionaire joined Harvard's governing board in 2018, donated $100 million to the university in 2021, and "led the search committee" that chose Gay as president in December 2022. An anonymous source told the Jewish Insider that Pritzker "has no intention of going down with the ship."
Her brother, J.B. Pritzker, has been the Democrat governor of dystopian Illinois since January 2019, whose population dropped by 263,000 residents, or 2.1%, from 12,813,000 in April 2020 to 12,550,000 in July 2023.
Three other members of the Harvard Corp. worked for the congenitally incompetent Democrat administration of Obama, a Harvard Law grad.
Kenneth I. Chenault, another Harvard law grad, and the retired chairman and CEO of American Express, was a member of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, as was Penny Pritzker.
The third member of the current Harvard Corp. and Obama alum is Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, the Harvard alum who co-chaired the Immigration Policy Working Group for the Obama-Biden transition in 2008-09. Between 2009-10, he served as a special assistant to the president.
Cuéllar's wife, Lucy Koh, another Harvard alum, was nominated by President Obama in 2010, and confirmed by the Senate, for a seat on U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
In 2021, Democrat President Joe Biden elevated Judge Koh to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Additionally, Cuéllar served on the California Supreme Court between 2015 and 2021, having been appointed by Democrat Gov. Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown.
The fourth current member of the Harvard Corp., who worked for President Obama, is Karen Gordon Mills, a Harvard alum and administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration between 2009 and 2013.
A fifth member, Theodore V. Wells Jr., a Harvard alum, is a corporate lawyer in Manhattan and the national treasurer for former Democrat Sen. Bill Bradley's unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign.
His lawyer wife, Nina Mitchell Wells, was the secretary of state of New Jersey between 2006 and 2010, appointed by Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine.
The other members of the Harvard Corp. — Timothy R. Barakett, Paul J. Finnegan, Biddy Martin, Diana L. Nelson, Tracy Pun Palandjian and Shirley M. Tilghman — have not served in any presidential administration.
Unsurprisingly, no member of the current Harvard Corp. is a Republican, prominent or not.
Moreover, The Harvard Crimson, the undergraduate newspaper, published a superb article on Feb. 2, 2023. According to the article, six current members of the Harvard Corp. gave a combined $1,380,000 to Democrat federal candidates in 2021 and 2022.
Penny Pritzker donated $763,200; Chenault, $397,600; Finnegan, $122,5000; Nelson, $49,900; Wells, $36,800; and Barakett, $10,000.
Finnegan was the only current member of the 12-person Harvard Corp. to give to Republican national candidates: $12,900. He also gave $155,000 to "PACs that support a bipartisan group of candidates."
A second eye-opening Harvard Crimson article, on Nov. 17, 2020, reported that during that year's presidential election, "270 faculty members contributed $317,835 to Biden, while just five faculty members contributed a total of $3,030 to Trump."
In conclusion, 2023 was an annus horribilis for Harvard. The calamities include the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision, 6-2, invalidating the university's affirmative-action, admissions policy for blatantly discriminating against Asian-American applicants.
Other major failures are the rampant antisemitism and anti-Zionism poisoning the campus; Gay's horrendous six-month presidency; and the withholding of major donations, or devastating criticisms, from billionaires including Bill Ackman, Len Blavatnik, Les Wexner and Ken Griffin.
Harvard's unfavorable nationwide publicity is likely to continue in 2024, as the U.S. House of Representatives Education and the Workforce Committee is probing possible double standards in the investigation and punishment of plagiarism between faculty members and administrators on one hand, and students on the other.
But the resignations should not stop with President Gay. Excluding interim President Garber, the other 11 members of the Harvard Corp. who announced their unanimous support for her on Dec. 12, 2023, should also resign, in phases, this year.
Their replacements should include several eminent Republican alums, and fewer members with degrees in law and/or business.
Currently, seven have a business master's, and four have a law degree including Pritzker and Wells Jr.
Mark Schulte is a retired New York City schoolteacher and mathematician who has written extensively about science and the history of science. Read Mark Schulte's Reports — More Here.
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