The spin and bad take on the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay following plagiarism charges and her failure to provide a clear answer about whether Harvard’s code of conduct would have condemned people who called for the genocide of Jews has been hilarious.
My colleague responded to AP, claiming the resignation revealed a “conservative” weapon against colleges: plagiarism. We also pointed out how AP shot themselves in the foot since they do have standards against plagiarism. Are they conservatives based on the arguments they use?
Elon Musk praised Community Notes for calling out the AP on Twitter/X.
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 plagiarism as a “breach” of Harvard’s rules and that Gay was asked to resign after “a series breaches of this policy.”
The AP was not the only one to have a very bad spin. The BBC also had a very bad spin, claiming Gay was “a casualty of campus culture wars.” Later, they deleted the post after receiving a Community Note that reminded them of the facts and 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
Later, they admitted that it was deleted because the headline was not good. The headline was not much better. It read “plays into cultural 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
There was also this lovely comment by author Ibram Kendi who attributed the “attack” against Gay to racism. There was just one small problem.
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 cited another non-black individual who was forced to resign due to research misconduct, as well as Liz Magill who is a white woman who was forced to resign because she made similar remarks to Gay’s at the Congressional hearing, without any allegations of plagiarism.
He then claimed this was all about removing blacks from power and Community Notes again explained what she had been accused of. This included copying almost half of a page 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
Kendi was not stopped by the fact that it had nothing to do with race.
It shows how liberal media struggles to report facts that they do not like or are outside their agenda.
