Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo
Harvard President Claudine Gay, left, speaks during a hearing of the House Committee on Education, December 5, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
There is an old rule in journalism that a column is about one thing. Sometimes you have to break the rules. There is just too much to write about.
Harvard Trustees Back President Claudine Gay. It took the 11 members of Harvard’s top governing body known as the Harvard Corporation almost three days to make a decision, but in the end they issued a unanimous statement of support that was just a bit qualified but more than good enough.
What took the extra time was a plagiarism charge that far-right provocateurs Christopher Rufo and Christopher Brunet boasted that they had waited to release until just the right moment Sunday to do maximum damage. But the charge turned out to be a canard—that’s French for a duck that won’t quack.
A special shout-out is due The Harvard Crimson, which has been at least half a day ahead of The Boston Globe and The New York Times at each stage of the story. Crimson reporters reviewed all of the supposedly plagiarized passages against the originals, contacted every one of the scholars whose work was supposedly plagiarized, and with one partial exception (Carol Swain), all said that these were innocent errors and not plagiarism. The Harvard Corporation, in reviewing the plagiarism charge, must have relied on the Crimson to do a lot of their homework.
New York Will Get Another Redistricting. Yesterday, the Court of Appeals, New York state’s highest court, ruled that New York must get newly drawn districts by February 28, 2024, in time for the 2024 congressional election. This is a very big deal. All by itself, it could flip the House, since New York lost three seats in the 2022 midterm, when districts were gerrymandered in the Republicans’ favor.
That fiasco was partly the result of the court having a center-right chief judge, Janet DiFiore, a onetime Republican appointed by Andrew Cuomo in 2015, who voted with court conservatives in a 4-3 ruling to throw out a map drawn by the legislature. The new court-ordered redistricting then favored Republicans.
Cuomo’s successor, Kathy Hochul, attempted to repeat the same pattern by appointing another right-wing judge, Hector LaSalle, but the legislature refused to confirm him. A humiliated Hochul then elevated progressive Judge Rowan Wilson to the chief judge post, and named another progressive, Caitlin Halligan, to succeed him. Yesterday’s ruling by the divided court was also 4-3, this time in a way that will help Democrats.
The Cook Report lists three New York seats currently held by Republicans as toss-ups, even before redistricting. And Democrats also have a good shot at taking back the seat vacated by George Santos.
Better Late Than Never? Now that much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble, President Biden has finally chastised Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Speaking at a Washington fundraiser, Biden said, “He’s a good friend but I think he has to change.” And he warned that Israel is losing the world’s support because of “the indiscriminate bombing that takes place.”
This is progress, but since so many of Israel’s bombs and rockets are reliant on U.S. military aid, this has become Biden’s war. It remains to be seen if and how Biden will follow up words with deeds—including conditioning aid on drastically altered policy. Netanyahu’s response was somewhere between defiant and contemptuous. Words alone make Biden seem both weak and complicit.
