Dr. Claudine Gay resigned from her position as Harvard University President last week and we can’t stop comparing her tenure to the Netflix show “The Chair” starring Sandra Oh. If you’ve seen it, you’ll see what we mean after we outline a timeline of events.

Beginning at the End

On January 2 and January 3, 2024 respectively, Dr. Claudine Gay wrote her public resignation and a follow up Op-Ed piece published in The New York Times.  In her resignation, she cites attacks on the validity of her academic research and violent language and threats as primary drivers of her resignation. Dr. Gay summarizes vile language and threats in her inbox as well as what she believed to be the root cause of the backlash against her: having the nerve to lead a historically white male-run institution as a Black woman who believes in the strength of American multiculturalism. The Harvard Corporation also issued a bland statement in the Harvard Gazette where they appointed one of the chief critics of Dr. Gay’s performance.

Historically white-run news outlets have said Dr. Gay’s firing was about everything under the sun: plagiarism, an inadequate response to antisemitism on campus, and an inadequate answer to a partisan congressional figure.  But when we do an institutional analysis of the public information available from Dr. Gay’s tenure at Harvard University, our findings are similar to The Grio–systemic racism rises to the top as the culprit of her downfall.

We offer that the key question is not about Dr. Gay but instead about whether Harvard is committed to cynical diversity hiring and promotion practices or truly committed to lasting structural change within their private institution.

The Harvard Demographic Context

Post the racial reckoning brought on by the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, historically white-run institutions made promises to change their collective behavior and commit to more serious DEI-related practices.  Harvard University is along for that ride.

When we take a close look at Harvard’s faculty demographics over the past decade, we see a slow and painful decline in the overrepresentation of white male tenured faculty. Yet even with this decline, white male tenured faculty make up 56% of faculty at Harvard which is an overrepresentation of +18% compared with American society. Meanwhile, Black people make up 14% of the U.S. population and represent 5% of Harvard’s faculty being underrepresented by -9%.

The Harvard Corporation which is the managing board of Harvard University is an even worse reflection of both the Harvard University community and America than even the faculty numbers.

Based on the Harvard website and publicly available mentions of the demographic background of each Harvard Corporation member.

This data alone suggests Harvard’s demographic changes are not driven by a deep commitment to systemic equity, instead the very slow 50-year integration of “elite” circles of all races in the United States that was demanded by the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s is the major factor.

Dr. Gay Before the Presidency

Let’s review Dr. Gay’s career as a case study of how the Harvard University system treats high performing underrepresented employees.

Dr. Gay started at Harvard on the tenure track in 2006 as a political scientist. You can see a summary of her cutting edge research on the academic website Research Gate.  According to the Harvard Gazette, Dr. Gay’s first big move into administration happened in 2015 when she was promoted to Dean of Social Sciences. In addition to her dean duties, in 2017 she was appointed to lead the Inequality in America Initative. Within a year of Dr Gay’s appointment to lead this university-wide initiative, the Harvard Gazette reported that after 11 years, Dr. Michael Smith, a white male, was stepping down as the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Dean. As the powerful FAS dean, it seems fair to say Dr. Smith had an outsized role in promoting Dr. Gay through the Harvard system.

While Dr. Gay was being promoted, The Office for Dispute Resolution (ODR) had started an investigation into multiple credible allegations of sexual misconduct by Dr. Roland Fryer, a popular Black male professor working in Economics, a sub-unit under the FAS department. Dr Fryer had been featured on numerous television programs including The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Dr. Fryer’s sexual misconduct dated back to 2006 according to John S. Rosenberg of Harvard Magazine. Dr. Michael Smith took over as Dean in 2007, a year after both Dr. Gay and Dr. Fryer started their careers at Harvard which means these credible allegations sat untouched for Dr. Smith’s entire 11-year tenure as FAS dean.

Dr. Gay is appointed FAS dean July 1, 2018 right after Dr. Michael Smith resigned—leaving the public discipline of a popular Black male colleague to his Black female successor. Dean Gay’s first big public profile project was the act of shepherding Dr. Fryer’s sexual harassment case to a close. By all public accounts, Gay handled this high-profile event with grace although there was a minor backlash from alumni and students in the Economics department in which Dr. Roland Fryer was a professor.

The next big test for Dean Gay came during the COVID crisis of 2020. In an interview with the Harvard Alumni Association, Dean Gay in her own words shared the organizing and leadership lift it took to mobilize Harvard to usher students off campus safely and begin virtual instruction. Remember at the same time, the Black Lives Matter movement was shining a light on systemic racism and injustice especially as it related to the killing of George Floyd. Therefore it makes sense that in this same interview, the alumni office interviewer brings up racial inequity and Dean Gay provided her expert insights on how the COVID-19 pandemic brought racial inequity to the fore.

Fast forward to 2022, and the Harvard Corporation begins a search for a new president. Dean Gay is featured in an article from Julian J. Giordano of The Harvard Crimson speculating as to whether she wants to be considered for the position.

Dean Gay Becomes President Gay

On December 15, 2022, Dean Gay was appointed the 30^th President of Harvard University. According to Liz Mineo of The Harvard Gazette, the audience was filled with Yessss!!! On July 1, 2023, Dean Gay officially assumed duties of the role of President.

Dean Gay took hit after hit with no discernible or coherent disaster response from the Harvard Corporation. ABC News writer Meredith Deliso did a comprehensive timeline of events but I will list a few key moments from our analysis.

• October 7, 2023 – Students release statement condemning Israeli state actions in lead up to Hamas attacks (Source: Crimson Staff Writers J. Sellers Hill and Nia L. Orakwue)
• October 24, 2023 – Right wing propagandists at The New York Post release first accusations of plagiarism alleging a vast conspiracy and cover-up within Harvard related to then President Gay
• November 9, 2023 – President Gay releases a memo noting an investigation from the FBI and Harvard University Police around an alleged antisemitic incident on the Harvard Business School campus
• December 5, 2023 – President Gay attends right-wing partisan charged House-led hearing on Capital Hill with other university presidents (Source: C-Span on YouTube)
• December 6, 2023 – President Gay responds to right-wing backlash post hearing (Source: Sarah Beth Hensley of ABC News)
• December 12, 2023 – Harvard Corporation releases a bland statement of confidence in President Gay (Source: Harvard University Blog)

Right-wing activists, propagandists, and elected officials ran a coordinated dual-pronged campaign against her competence (alleging plagiarism) and calling her antisemitic. These attacks culminated in President Gay stepping down January 2, 2024 amid an onslaught of verbal threats and abuse from brought on right-wing attacks.

Harvard Management Failed Dr. Gay at Highest Levels

Harvard is failing to meet the most basic numeric diversity goals, let alone stretch cultural goals that would create good conditions of leadership for a scholar of Dr. Gay’s caliber. On top of that, a basic communications scan would show public backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement that was broad and included all scholarship related to race like critical race theory, diversity, equity, and/or inclusion.  Dr. Kimberly Crenshaw of the African American Policy Forum at Columbia University is likely the foremost living scholar in this discipline and can be seen here on The Daily Show with Roy Wood Jr. warning of this backlash dating back to 2021. We wrote about the backlash in Perspectives on Equity in July 2021.

Ian Ward of Politico then sat down with right-wing activist and propagandist Christopher Rufo to document Rufo’s victory lap as the leader of this organized effort.

Throughout Dr. Gay’s administrative career, she was asked to clean up various messes (racialized and otherwise) time and time and time again.  Given Dr. Gay’s academic work centered on issues of race and inequality, the Harvard Corporation at the least, should have had plans in place to combat any racist or sexist attacks. Moreover, for any candidate chosen, research should have been reviewed and tightened before their appointment. A risk management plan should have been readied to mobilize a university response should a racist, sexist attack take place. An alumni donor review should have been conducted to identify potential challenges, engage existing donors that were inclined to support Dr. Gay, and cultivate new donors.  These are just a few ideas from a writer and business consultant that never went to Harvard so we can imagine that the corporate board of Harvard University should have been able to do even better than my suggestions, yet it appears they had no plan at all—leaving Dr. Gay on her own to handle an onslaught of violent right-wing rhetoric.

Not only did the Harvard Corporation lack a plan for this weighty, historic appointment, but they then installed an interim president that publicly criticized Dr. Gay. A final insult and humiliation for the shortest serving president of in Harvard University history.After such botched handling of Dr. Gay’s presidency by the Harvard Corporation and the Harvard community writ-large, our final question: When can we expect an investigation and resignations from its members?