Jan
3
2024

Bye, Claudine

You may have heard that Claudine Gay resigned from her post at Harvard. It's a sad day, because (as I've said before) she was a useful and prominent reminder of the intellectual corruption of elite higher education.

But there are plenty of other reminders, so I'm not that sad.

Arnold Kling writes (pre-resignation) on The Claudine Gray Litmus Test. Quoting John Cochrane who notes that Harvard picking her as Prez was no blunder: "…Gay is exactly what Harvard wanted, and a look-alike is exactly what it will get unless it wants something different."

From our point of view, firing Gray would solve nothing. If anything, it would probably relieve the pressure for real reform in higher education. Instead, what might work would be something like a multi-institution blue-ribbon commission to get higher education to re-commit to the values in Cochrane’s second mission. But I don’t think that such a commission could get enough buy-in to make a difference.

Well, we'll see. As far as its free-speech policies go, it can't help but improve.

In other commentary: Jeff Maurer has Claudine Gay's Letter of Resignation.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one president to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a university‥

Well, not really, the actual letter was far worse. Oliver Wiseman and Bari Weiss, plagiarizing the Dropkick Murphys, observe: Claudine Gay, We Hardly Knew Ye….

Missing from Gay’s note was some important. . . context.

I bet you get the reference.

Also of note:

  • Do we need a FDA for AI? I bet you've been asking yourself that question. Katherine has your answer: We Absolutely Do Not Need an FDA for AI. Her bottom line:

    One thing is clear: We are not in a Jurassic Park situation. If anything, we are experiencing the opposite of Jeff Goldblum's famous line about scientists who "were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." The most prominent people in AI seem to spend most of their time asking if they should. It's a good question. There's just no reason to think politicians or bureaucrats will do a good job answering it.

    Her article includes this amusing tweet:

  • On the Nikki Gaffewatch… is Jonah Goldberg: Haley’s Civil War Gaffe Shocked Us Because Such Missteps Are Rare.

    Nikki Haley gave a bad answer to an easy question: What caused the Civil War?

    She replied with a word salad on freedom and the role of government while failing to mention the word “slavery” at all.

    We don’t need to dwell on why it was a bad answer. The Civil War is a complicated topic, but the simple truth is it wouldn’t have occurred but for the issue of slavery.

    I think she messed up for three interrelated reasons: She thought the question was a “gotcha” and overthought how to respond; she was relying on muscle memory from her days in South Carolina; and, last, because she was campaigning in New Hampshire—the “Live Free or Die” state—and she was trying to cater to what she thought were the audience’s libertarian tendencies.

    She could have recovered: "Oh, did you say the Civil War? I thought you said Revolutionary War! Yeah, slavery."

  • What do Communist millionaires worry about? Damien Fisher has one data point from a local: Hate Crimes Talk Worries Communist Millionaire Funding Anti-Israel Protests.

    A key figure in the New Hampshire anti-Israel protest movement, multi-millionaire Communist James “Fergie” Chambers, says the new focus on hate crimes by federal and state law enforcement has him worried.

    He acknowledged the topic is controversial but doesn’t believe the response is proportional.

    “Yeah, this insane backlash equating us with Nazis, charging our friends with insane stuff for what amounts to vandalism….who knows at this point?” Chambers, who lives in the Granite State, told NHJournal via text.

    But that wasn’t the only thing Chambers has typed up as of late. For example, the avowed opponent of the nation of Israel posted on Facebook last month, “Make Zionists afraid.”

    To recycle a quote we featured just yesterday about Marxists: "Someone for whom no amount of mass murder and tyranny will stop him worshipping the splendour in his head."

  • And everyone on this side of the political divide, for that matter. Martin Gurri would like to point out something To [His] Friends Across the Political Divide.

    I can’t avoid talking about Donald Trump but I’m going to make it brief. I know you don’t like him; neither do I. But let’s assume he’s only a politician. He’s not Hitler, Godzilla or the Beast of the Apocalypse—just a guy with a loud mouth and a desperate need for attention. Most Americans think of him that way.

    That's not his main point, I just liked the quote.

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Last Modified 2024-01-10 7:06 AM EDT