I think it was inevitable that Claudine Gay would resign from the Harvard presidency. And, as a graduate of Harvard (60 years ago this Spring!), the Harvard presidency is of some interest to me. But what I don’t understand is why it is of so much interest to so many other people, not connected in any way with the school.

I should restate that. I can understand why this might be a topic that people find of interest, but I don’t understand why it is a topic that people, with no connection to the school, should decide that it is something that they should take a stand on, involve themselves with, and feel that Gay’s resignation is something that they should cheer or rue as if it was crucial to their own existence.

And now that Gay has retired, there is pressure on the members of the Harvard Corporation (led by Penny Pritzker, of the Hyatt hotel chain, and brother of the governor of Illinois) to resign. Why do they care?

There are those, of course, who say that Gay has become a target because she is a Black woman. I am sure that some of her critics are, perhaps subconsciously, targeting her because of her gender and race, but I doubt this is the biggest issue. Just as some people are defending her because she is a Black woman, and wouldn’t be so defensive if she were a White male.

It’s the confluence of two major problems. First, there is antisemitism. Second, there is social justice. These two important issues seem to be at odds with each other. But I don’t think that this is necessary or inevitable.

Let’s start with social justice, or “wokeism”. I started reading Ibram X. Kendi’s How To Be An Antiracist yesterday. Kendi has certainly himself become a target of the “antiwoke” class – and I wanted to understand a little better why. From what I have seen in the first third of the book, Kendi’s position is that it isn’t sufficient to be non-racist. If you are just non-racist, he says, you are in effect supporting the status quo, which is a racist, so you have to be affirmatively antiracist. 

To be antiracist, says, Kendi, you have to work not to achieve equality of opportunity, but to change the balance now existing in certain facets of society. An example? Let’s say that Blacks are 10% of the population, and let’s say that 6% of neurosurgeons are Black. To be antiracist, you must work as hard as you can to make sure that 10% of neurosurgeons are Black. 

The premise is that there is no difference in the innate capacity of people of different races, and that the shortage of Black neurosurgeons exists only because society is racist. You would gauge your success by whether the ration of Black to other-than-Black neurosurgeons reached the 10 to 90 ratio.

Now, I have only read 1/3 of the book, so don’t hold me to this as Kendi’s basic conclusion. After all, if it was, he wouldn’t have had to write the ending 2/3. But this appears to be the gist of what he is saying. And if this is what you believe, you cheer when Claudine Gay is named president of Harvard, and you blame society more than her for her downfall, saying if she was not Black (I don’t yet know if Kendi talks about Black women as a special category in the remainder of the book), she would not have been targeted in the same way by Congress, by Harvard’s donor base, by the press, and so forth, either for her Congressional testimony or her alleged plagiarism. And had she been so targeted and White, she would have retained her job, not been forced to resign. 

And to prove his point, I would assume, he would attack those on the other side who say Gay would never have been put into the position of president unless Harvard felt obliged to hire a Black woman to fill their imagined diversity quota, as being examples of racists or non-racists, but not examples of the antiracists he would like everyone to become. Or would he say this? After all, wouldn’t an antiracist suggest a Black candidate for the presidency in order to play his number game, giving a wink towards her objective qualifications? If her qualifications seem a bit weak, isn’t that just a result of the racist or nonracist society which we live in? So could this be an area where both sides agree with each other, but wouldn’t dare admit it, even to themselves?

See….it is complicated.

The campus antisemitism issue, made more visible by the war in Gaza to be sure, raises a different issue. In order to be antiracist, you must – among other things – make sure that racist acts are eliminated. For someone to call for the elimination of Blacks (either through genocide or through transport to Liberia) is clearly a racist act. So it must be condemned and not permitted.

But campuses have a commitment, by and large, to free speech. Free speech (with limits which can be both clear and fuzzy) is a cornerstone of this country and a major component of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, of course. But the First Amendment applies to governmental actions, not to private actions, and Harvard is a private institution, not a government institution. So the First Amendment does not apply to Harvard. Yet, as I have read (and I can’t right now tell you where), Harvard has taken the position that it will act as if the First Amendment applied to it.

The First Amendment gives people the right to say all sorts of things that may be offensive and even dangerous – but unless there is a clear and present danger that the speech will lead to action (“clear and present” are my words, but you know what I mean), speech wins over repression.

On this basis, Gay and the two other university presidents said that anti-Jewish speech (whether or not it talks about genocide) will not be repressed unless it crosses a line and is leading to illegal action. At a time when antisemitism is at a high, this is not a very satisfactory answer to many people. When she said that these offensive words “depended on the context”, people were rightfully concerned. Where does the “context” become worrisome? As I said, the limits are both clear and fuzzy – depends who you are.

So those worried about antisemitism respond to this by saying (correctly, I think) that universities are reacting inconsistently by (1) allowing antisemitic speech which is meant to encourage action, even if it has not yet “crossed a line” (whatever that means), but (2) not allowing anti-Black speech at all. Or, to put it another way, by falling into a trap which looks to promote diversity reflecting racial balance (a la Kendi), but denying similar protection to Jews who, as a so-called racial group (or its equivalent), do not suffer from the same types of social under-representation.

But, as I said at the beginning, there is no need for these positions to be diametrically opposed. If people would only stop and think for a change.