Just fading away in the national news cycle are the vicissitudes of Claudine Gay, the hapless and now former president of Harvard University. She became Harvard’s president on July 1st of this past year with some fanfare because she was the first black woman to assume that ostensibly distinguished role. Several months into her presidency she in fact distinguished herself during a Congressional hearing over anti-Semitism, which was running rampant on her campus, and included calls for genocide of Jews. She made the impressive claim that demands to slaughter Jews were acceptable as long as they weren’t put into action, an idea she characterized as “context.”
While it appeared she would survive the succor she gave the “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and kill the Jews crowd, it came to light that during her career as a scholar (being generous) she had a tendency to, lets say, borrow words and ideas from others without attribution; in the world of academia this has traditionally been unacceptable and career ending, a practice called plagiarism. She weathered the storm initially, but in the end even accusations that she was a victim of racism didn’t save her, so she stepped down from her $900,000 a year position as president to revert to a $900,000 a year position as a faculty member.
Privileged white people and elites of all skin colors are so enamored with DEI that they cannot comprehend there could be a downside: they are too busy basking in the glow of power, profit, and feeling fabulous about themselves to question anything, like a Catholic bishop during the Inquisition. If “equity” means not arresting and not prosecuting violent criminals because they are black, so be it. If they continue to terrorize their own communities, which is generally the case, that’s the price the DEI crowd are willing for others to pay. If an incompetent or otherwise unqualified person is is hired primarily, if not solely, on the basis of skin color, sex, or because he’s a hairy guy who sashays around in stunning dresses and high heels (in the case of former Biden administration official Sam Brinton, stolen attire), it’s cool. It doesn’t matter if you are an incompetent medical practitioner, for example, as long as there is the appearance of “inclusivity;” those left in the wake of malpractice did their part to advance DEI.
Sometime the pernicious results of DEI are obvious, as in the explosion of violent crime following the death of George Floyd 3 ½ years ago. Sometimes they are more insidious, as in the case of Claudine Gay, a marginal scholar who was promoted to the (formerly) prestigious position of president of Harvard, a position well beyond her capabilities and correctly deemed a “diversity hire.”
In 2002-2003 I was the volunteer medical director (PA) of a remote clinic in Kenya. While there I befriended a young man just finishing high school, and became somewhat of a surrogate father to him. We kept in touch over the years, and in 2017 I reconnected with him during a brief return to East Africa. It was evident this was a gentleman with enormous potential, and my wife and I decided to sponsor him to attend college in the US. He completed two associate degrees and is just now entering his final semester to obtain a BS in Aviation Maintenance Science with a concentration in Cybertechnology and Security. He has excelled in every endeavor: graduating Summa Cum Laude, passing a rigorous FAA licensing exam, participating in a year-long work experience with an airline in which he was asked to become a supervisor (they didn’t fully realize his visa allowed employment for only one year). He exudes competence, dedication, hard work, responsibility, dignity, and decency, but I fear that because of DEI and buffoons such as Claudine Gay he, as a very dark-skinned black man (who happens to speak three languages), will forever be discounted as just another “diversity hire.”
DEI offers lots of power, money, and ego-enhancement to the few- the privileged elite- but it diminishes everyone else, especially people with other than white skin. Curiously, when those who control the cultural agenda go looking for “inclusivity,” they limit their search to the bottom of the respective barrels. For some reason they seem oblivious to the fact that, in regards to race for example, there are plenty “people of color” who are fully competent and qualified for whatever position. So why do they choose selfish and greedy clowns and fools who cannot stand up to scrutiny and inevitably fall back on “racism” when they fail? I suspect they are threatened by competency, and want the mirage of superficial- and meaningless- “diversity” without fear of being challenged, i.e. a way to appear wonderful while still “keeping the black man down.” Unfortunately, this thesis actually makes sense.