Also from Erick Erickson that hits it out of the park with Gay:
“The paternalistic tendencies of the American left oftentimes result in some of the most blatant instances of racism in American culture. Consider Claudine Gay.
Hardcore progressives defended Gay when she stood before a congressional committee and refused to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews at Harvard under the unconvincing guise of free speech. The outrage that ensued resulted in her defenders claiming that she was being targeted only because she was a woman of color despite the pro-genocide white presidents of UPenn and MIT being targeted as well.
When the outrage resulted in increased scrutiny of Gay’s academic work, the progressive left again levied attacks that her gender and skin color were really on trial. But it wasn’t until after The Washington Free Beacon’s daming report that outlined nearly 50 instances of blatant plagiarism that the progressive left changed their tone. Instead of championing her innocence, her incredulous defenders claimed that holding an African American woman to the same academic standard as the rest of higher education is inherently racist.
A New York Times writer said on MSNBC, "This is really an attack on academic freedom ... This is an attack on diversity. This is an attack on multiculturalism, & ... I don’t have to say that they’re racist, because you can hear and see the racism in the attacks."
A CNN reporter claimed, “Gay has not been accused of stealing anyone's ideas in any of her writings. She’s been accused more like copying other people’s writings without attribution. So it's been more sloppy attribution than stealing anyone’s ideas.
The paternalistic American left that views all of life through the lens of intersectionality inevitably perpetrates some of the most racist undertones in all of American culture. Instead of seeking equality of opportunity, they so want to elevate black, brown, and anyone else they deem as oppressed that they refuse to view them by their merits and instead only be the level of their oppression. The result is that progressives go on television and contort their words to defend a university president who blatantly committed plagiarism on dozens of occasions only because they prefer her gender and skin color.
The reality is that Claudine Gay never should have been president of Harvard. Plagiarism aside, her academic work was sparse and underwhelming and her intersectional score resulting from her gender and skin color singularly put her at the top of one of America’s most elite institutions.”
www.politico.com
