Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo responded to Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation letter while cheering on her departure from the top post at the university.
In a letter released on Tuesday, Gay announced that she was stepping down as president and will return to the Harvard faculty.
Rufo, a frequent critic of critical race theory in education, noted that, in her letter, Gay did not reference her plagiarism scandals but instead brought up "racial animus."
"This is Claudine Gay's resignation letter. Rather than take responsibility for minimizing antisemitism, committing serial plagiarism, intimidating the free press, and damaging the institution, she calls her critics racist. This is the poison of DEI ideology. Glad she's gone," Rufo wrote on X.
Gay’s letter read, "My deep sense of connection to Harvard and its people has made it all the more painful to witness the tensions and divisions that have riven our community in recent months, weakening the bonds of trust and reciprocity that should be our sources of strength and support in times of crisis. Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor—two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am—and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus."
Various critics have also called out Harvard’s previous defense of its president, suggesting that it was to defend its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office.
In a column for the Wall Street Journal, Jason Riley blasted the school for lowering standards to place Gay in a high position.
"Harvard’s dilemma illustrates a broader practical problem with racial-preference policies. Once you lower standards for hiring administrators or admitting students, you are forced to lower standards for evaluating their conduct and performance. For purposes of window dressing, people who have no business running elite institutions such as Harvard have been put in charge of people who have no business teaching or matriculating there," he wrote.
Prior to her resignation, Gay faced multiple charges of plagiarism with the latest six being reported as recently as Monday. The Washington Free Beacon, who first reported the new charges, noted that they brought the total number of allegations to nearly 50 or "half of Gay's published works."
HARVARD PRESIDENT CLAUDINE GAY RESIGNS AMID ANTISEMITISM, PLAGIARISM CONTROVERSIES
In another post, Rufo cheered the decision, writing, "This is the beginning of the end for DEI in America's institutions. We will expose you. We will outmaneuver you. And we will not stop fighting until we have restored colorblind equality in our great nation."
"Today, we celebrate victory. Tomorrow, we get back to the fight. We must not stop until we have abolished DEI ideology from every institution in America," another post read.
