BY JENNIFER RUTH
I think he meant “scalped.” Right-wing activist Chris Rufo posted “SCAPLED: Harvard President Claudine Gay Resigns” on X at 10 am today. He then reposted someone saying, “Claudine Gay’s is a huge scalp. No doubt about it. Especially when combined with Liz Magill’s a week ago. But we cannot rest on our laurels. This is a fight for civilizational sanity against civilizational arson. We can’t stop until the DEI cancer is fully eliminated.” Rufo then reposted House GOP Chairwoman Elise Stefanik’s announcement: “TWO DOWN.”
One image on Real Jerusalem Streets shows a huge poster of Elise Stefanik with the American flag behind her and the words “You are great!” along the top. Along the bottom are three smaller-sized pictures of ex-Penn president Liz Magill, now ex-Harvard president Claudine Gay, and MIT president Sally Kornbluth with the word “RESIGN!” under their heads. The image of the poster has been reposted on X countless times.
News stories are being written now saying, “Calls for MIT President Sally Kornbluth to resign have grown since Harvard’s Claudine Gay announced her decision to leave her post on Tuesday.”
With the 1954 film Salt of the Earth on my syllabus for this upcoming term, I recently read blacklisted director Herbert Biberman’s 1965 book about the difficulties he had making the film as one of the Hollywood Ten. Here are some of his thoughts about being dragged before the House Un-American Activities Committee:
In the developing atmosphere we knew that to challenge the committee in any fundamental way was to risk some personal danger. If we refused to permit the committee to violate the First Amendment through interrogating us in the privileged areas of thought and association, we would risk a contempt citation.
If a committee of Congress can label certain thinking ‘un-American’ and can forcibly pry one’s mind open to discover and punish thinking, then it can also outlaw ideas it dislikes, through intimidation. Not one’s conscience but one’s fears then became the determinant of attitudes and associations.
According to one news story, a poster in Gaza pinned on a concrete wall surrounded by rubble reads, “This destruction resembles the conscience of the world.” In “A ‘McCarthyite Backlash’ Against Pro-Palestine Speech” in Jewish Currents, Alex Kane quotes Radhika Sainath, a lawyer for Palestine Legal, “We’ve had an exponential surge in requests for legal help. It has been like nothing we’ve seen before.”
Holllywood was the primary target then. Higher education is now. ‘”We must DEFUND the rot in America’s higher education,” Stefanik told the Daily Mail in an earlier statement. If you’re familiar with the British right-wing tabloid Daily Mail, you know it traffics in entertainment gossip (Taylor Swift, Sydney Sweeney) and horrific tragedies (mug shots of mothers who killed their children, highway pileups). It’s a graphically visual medium—pictures of topless celebrities and other figurative and literal train wrecks. If you go to the site at this instant (Tuesday, Jan. 2, 12:20), the headline story is “Claudine Gay QUITS as Harvard President and FAILS to mention her denial of antisemitism and plagiarism controversy in sour resignation letter—then claims she has been the victim of racism.” It speaks volumes that this daily tabloid obsessively covered the congressional hearings, paying particular attention to Harvard donor and billionaire investor Bill Ackman’s acrimonious posts hounding Claudine Gay.
“We can’t function as a university if we’re answerable to random rich guys and the mobs they mobilize on Twitter,” Harvard Law School professor Ben Eidelson told the New York Times in this story from December 12th. It’s a real question now for universities: can we function in these conditions?
Jennifer Ruth is a contributing editor for Academe Blog and the author, with Michael Bérubé, of It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom and co-editor, with Ellen Schrecker and Valerie Johnson, of The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom, forthcoming from Beacon Press.
It speaks volumes that this post focuses entirely on political interference (Republican congress members and university donors) but feels no obligation to explain, defend, or justify Gay’s plagiarism, which can no longer be disputed. As usual, John McWhorter gets it right: “If it is mobbish to call on Black figures of influence to be held to the standards that others are held to, then we have arrived at a rather mysterious version of antiracism. . . . I would even wish Harvard well in searching for another Black woman to serve as president if that is an imperative. But at this point that Black woman cannot, with any grace, be Claudine Gay.” Fascist Republican attempts to impose their political agenda on universities cannot be resisted if we circle the wagons and protect faculty who commit fraud. That the exposure of the fraud was politically motivated does not change the fact that the misconduct occurred.
Jake D,
Agree with your comments completely.
However, one small suggestion:
In future posts, you might want to consider avoiding the trap of using inaccurate emotive labels such as “Fascist,” as in the sentence, “Fascist Republican attempts to impose their political agenda on universities…”
Unfortunately, “name calling” seems to be the “in” thing now. But it is never a substitute for a valid argument. And academics – in presenting their position – should really stick to facts and logic and not political invectives.
“Fascism” seems to be the smear du jour. But note, it can be used both ways. It would just as fair for the so-called “Fascist” Republicans to claim that they are merely countering the “Fascist Democrat attempts to impose their political agenda on universities…”
Bottom line: Political hyperbole is unconvincing and only detracts from your good points.
Professor Ruth cobbles together a collection of disjointed anecdotes and presumably wants the reader to infer that “fascism” is attacking higher education (see headline).
Each of the seven main paragraphs in this post contains an observation or opinion that one may or may not agree with. But in no way do these paragraphs – taken individually or taken as a whole – support a conclusion that fascism is afoot.
Unfortunately, this post seems to exude more hand wringing and teeth gnashing than logic. And sadly, it wants to substitute name calling for a cogent argument.
University intellectuals should deal with any opinion or criticism that they dislike the way intellectuals are supposed to, i.e., refute with convincing arguments whatever falsehoods – real or imagined – that they perceive.
If one truly thinks that the three university presidents did not disgrace themselves and should not resign, then one should clearly state one’s reasons.
If one truly thinks that Claudine Gay did not commit plagiarism and should not resign in disgrace, then one should clearly state one’s reasons.
If one truly thinks that Rep Elise Stefanik should not have questioned the presidents on whether calling for the extermination of Jews would violate their school’s code of conduct, then one should clearly state one’s reasons.
If one truly believes that rich men, exercising their free speech rights, should not be able to determine how a donation is spent, then one should clearly state one’s reasons.
What one should not do, however, is skip the persuasive arguments and resort to fallacious name calling. It is beneath the profession.
Universities and their faculties are not helpless and the notion that universities are “victims” of “fascists” is as much unbecoming as it is disingenuous.
Thank you Jenneth Ruth for your update, and more power to your blogs. As someone who has studied in a US state university (MA and PhD programs) in the 1990s, I have seen, through the years, the growing power (funded by the billionaires), reach and virulence (backed by the state) of the far right. There is a term for this malignant anti-intellectual, anti-academic power–FASCISM. May I share two essential reads:
“America is now in fascism’s legal phase”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/22/america-fascism-legal-phase#:~:text=We%20are%20now%20in%20fascism's,being%20used%20to%20justify%20them.
And manifests the 14 common features of fascism listed by Umberto Eco
https://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html
Quibuyen10,
The problem with Professor Ruth’s article as well as your comments is that you both want to rely on using the emotionally charged word “fascism” to advance your narrative. You and she apparently believe that tossing this word around is a substitute for a valid and cogent argument. It is not.
While scholars note that the term “fascism” does not have a precise definition, it does conjure up – to most readers – imagines of Hitler, Mussolini, and a government’s forcible suppression of its population.
Unquestionably, this word “fascism” represents (is code for) some of modern society’s worst experiences with government. And the act of merely labeling an opponent with this despised term does not logically free one from refuting the merits of an opponent’s argument.
Professor Ruth’s article purported to show that “fascism” was attacking higher education. Yet, not one of her seven main paragraphs offered the slightest evidence to support her thesis.
Since you thanked her for her “update” – and presumably think that criticism of her article is unfounded – perhaps you might point out exactly what paragraph or paragraphs in her article proved (or would make a fair-minded person think) that fascism was really happening to universities.
Notably you defined “fascism” as “malignant anti-intellectual, anti-academic power.” Did any of Professor Ruth’s paragraphs – individually or taken as a whole – prove the existence of “malignant anti-intellectual, anti-academic power” to you? And, if you believe so, would you kindly explain why?
University intellectuals should be able to express themselves clearly and compellingly without resorting to mindless name calling. The criticism here is that the article not only lacked clarity and cogency, but most disturbingly, it did not offer any basis for labeling the events or opinions that she chose with the hated term “fascism.”