Claudine Gay is gone, but diversity ideology still plagues Harvard

Numerous and compounding reasons led to Claudine Gay’s removal as president of Harvard University. Her departure, while a necessary first step, does not solve the problems that required her departure and that continue to plague Harvard and much of higher education.

Gay was manifestly unqualified for the position, with only a fraction of the scholarly accomplishments of her predecessors at Harvard and peers at other universities. She was obviously selected as a symbol for the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ideology that Harvard wishes to promote, not because of her merit as a scholar. Gay even used DEI as a cudgel to eliminate rivals much more accomplished black professors, such as Roland Fryer and Ronald Sullivan, with manufactured charges that they had created hostile work environments.

But the use of DEI as a departure from academic merit and as a weapon for organizational combat are not eliminated with Gay’s departure. The DEI bureaucracy that she helped build and use for her ascent remains intact at Harvard and throughout higher education.