There have been some hilarious bad takes and spin when it comes to the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay in the wake of charges of plagiarism and failure to give an unequivocal answer as to whether Harvard’s rules of conduct would condemn people calling for genocide against Jews.
My colleague Bonchie dealt with the AP claiming that the resignation highlighted a new “conservative weapon” against colleges: plagiarism. My colleague Brandon Morse also pointed out how AP kind of shot themselves in the foot since, yes, they have standards against plagiarism too — so are they now “conservatives” based on their own arguments?
Over on Twitter/X, Elon Musk celebrated Community Notes calling out the AP.
Harvard president's resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism https://t.co/GiVkT3LgUo
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 3, 2024
The note explained that plagiarism was a “breach of the rules” at Harvard and that Gay had been asked to resign in the wake of “a series of breaches of this policy.”
But the AP wasn’t the only one with very bad spin. There was also the BBC that had this very bad take claiming that Gay was a “casualty of the campus culture wars.” They later deleted it after they received a Community Note reminding them about the facts and the plagiarism allegations against Gay.
BBC has now deleted this post after it was community noted. Embarrassing stuff from a public broadcaster. Showing their true colours, yet again. pic.twitter.com/kmCKaKlmo7
— Bella Wallersteiner 🇺🇦 (@BellaWallerstei) January 3, 2024
They later admitted that they deleted it because of the problem with the headline. But their new headline wasn’t much better, changing it to “plays into culture wars.”
Departure of Harvard's Claudine Gay plays into campus culture wars https://t.co/fbDzx26E4C https://t.co/rFOePC5ij6
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) January 3, 2024
Then there was this wonderful comment from author Ibram X. Kendi, who blamed the “attack” on Gay as racism. Except there was a small problem with that.
When a racist mob attacks a Black person, it finds a seemingly legitimate reason for the attack that allows for it to accrue popular support and credibility, and which allows the growing mob to deny they are attacking the person in this way because the person is Black. 1/4
— Ibram X. Kendi (@ibramxk) January 2, 2024
Community Notes pointed to another non-black person who had to resign for research misconduct as well as Liz Magill, who is white, who had to resign over similar comments to those Gay made at the Congressional hearing without even any accusations of plagiarism.
Then he claimed that this was about toppling all black people from positions of power, and again, Community Notes explained what she was accused of, including lifting almost half a page nearly verbatim from someone else.
Racist mobs won’t stop until they topple all Black people from positions of power and influence who are not reinforcing the structure of racism. What these racist mobs are doing should be obvious to any reporter who cares about truth or justice as opposed to conflicts and clicks. https://t.co/HrRKzprnnv
— Ibram X. Kendi (@ibramxk) January 2, 2024
It had absolutely nothing to do with race, but that didn’t stop Kendi, of course.
But it shows once again what problems liberal media has with reporting straight facts they don’t like or that fall outside of their agenda.
