College Presidents Are Under Siege – It’s About Time

After decades of allowing militant far-left ideology to spread unchecked on their campuses and in their classrooms, university presidents and administrators are finally facing a reckoning.

The explosion of antisemitic incidents on college campuses following Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel in October opened the eyes of millions of Americans to the moral depravity and downright genocidal thinking that have infected once venerated academic institutions.

While conservatives and free speech advocates have been sounding the alarm about the proliferation of ideologies such as Critical Race Theory and radical gender theory for years, the world now has seen first-hand just how dangerous those dogmas are as left-wing professors have slandered Jewish students as “colonizers” in class while mobs of radicalized left-wing students have threatened and attacked Jewish students and faculty.

There is plenty of blame to go around for American academia’s descent into a morass of cultural Marxism and left-wing extremism. But the university presidents and administrators who have at best ignored and at worst actively encouraged this phenomenon are uniquely responsible for it – and in many cases are direct beneficiaries of it.

Most have so far avoided any real accountability. But in the wake of the wave of antisemitism on their campuses, the presidents of several of America’s elite universities have been forced to apologize for their actions and statements and are facing intense pressure from high-dollar donors to step down.

This pressure ramped up significantly following congressional testimony on December 5 from Elizabeth Magill, Claudine Gay, and Sally Kornbluth, the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and MIT, respectively. During questioning from Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), all three refused to say that calling for genocide against Jews violated their schools’ code of conduct.

The shocking exchange led to immediate public uproar and extensive negative news coverage. Days later, a bipartisan group of 74 Members of Congress sent a letter to the governing boards of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT demanding that they immediately dismiss their presidents.

“The university presidents’ responses to questions aimed at addressing the growing trend of antisemitism on college and university campuses were abhorrent,” the lawmakers wrote. “When pushed on whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates university policies on bully and harassment, Presidents Gay (Harvard), Kornbluth (MIT), and Magill (Penn) were evasive and dismissive, failing to simply condemn such action. This should be an easy and resounding ‘yes.’”

The incident also touched off a wave of donor revolts at these schools and several others that have also seen a series of antisemitic incidents. Len Blavatnik, a billionaire who has donated some $270 million to Harvard, said he was immediately pausing all contributions shortly after Gay’s testimony. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman has also ceased his recurring donations and demanded that the school fire Gay.

UPenn, MIT, and Yale have similarly seen high net worth donors pull their support.

In at least one case, that of now-former UPenn President Elizabeth Magill, this pressure campaign was successful. As The New York Times reported, following Magill’s testimony, “Influential graduates questioned her leadership, wealthy contributors moved to withdraw donations, and public officials besieged the university to oust its president.” Magill resigned just four days after her appearance before Congress.

But it is perhaps Harvard’s President Gay who has faced the most intense public scrutiny, particularly following allegations that she plagiarized much of her academic work. The Washington Free Beacon has cited more than a half dozen instances in Gay’s writings, including her doctoral dissertation, in which she lifted entire sentences or even paragraphs directly from other authors without crediting them.

The plagiarism is so egregious that even liberal columnists Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post and John McWhorter of The New York Times have called on Gay to resign. “Her track record is unbefitting the president of the country’s premier university,” Ruth wrote, while McWhorter argued, “As a matter of scholarly ethics, academic honor and, perhaps most of all, leadership that sets an example for students, Dr. Gay would be denigrating the values of ‘veritas’ that she and Harvard aspire to uphold.”

If Gay is indeed forced out, it will be under the pretense of her academic dishonesty. But it was her refusal to condemn calls for genocide against Jews and the subsequent backlash against her extreme woke policies that first put her on the hot seat.

Kornbluth has escaped relatively unscathed compared to Magill and Gay, but is still facing calls for her resignation and donors withdrawing their support. If that pressure continues, she too may be forced out.

The repercussions for Magill, Gay, and Kornbluth serve as a warning to the presidents of the rest of America’s academic institutions. While these three were chosen because they represent some of the most prestigious schools in the country, they could well have been replaced by the president of virtually any other major university, almost all of whom have tolerated or encouraged antisemitism and nurtured the same culture of militant leftism.

In the years ahead, the challenge for conservatives will be to build on this momentum and continue to press for accountability and changes in leadership.

Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @ShaneHarris513.