Claudine Gay has resigned as president of Harvard University, though she will keep her job as a faculty member in the political science department\u2014and her $900,000 a year salary<\/a>. That’s something of an achievement, given that her misdeeds were academic in nature: Gay was caught plagiarizing numerous passages from other scholars.<\/p>\n

But in some corners of the media, the fact she committed plagiarism matters much less than the reality that it was conservative writers who caught her. The Washington Free Beacon<\/em>‘s Aaron Sibarium<\/a> (a reporter at a right-leaning news website) performed the lion’s share of the digging; Christopher Brunet<\/a> (a conservative writer), Christopher Rufo<\/a> (a conservative writer and activist), and Phil Magness<\/a> (a libertarian economic historian) also made important contributions. Astonishingly, some mainstream standards-keepers have decided that the ideologies of the accusers have essentially discredited the accusations.<\/p>\n

Cue the Associated Press (A.P.), which posted the following, remarkable observation on X (formerly Twitter): “Harvard president’s resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism.”<\/p>\n

\n

Harvard president's resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism https:\/\/t.co\/GiVkT3LgUo<\/a><\/p>\n

— The Associated Press (@AP) January 3, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n