Implications of the resignation of Claudine Gay as Harvard President and the battle for power in the United States expressed through the debate on Gaza

Discussion of Emanuel Pastreich and John Spritzler

Implications of Claudine Gay resignation as president of Harvard

Harvard President Claudine Gay gives testimony at the House Committee on Education and the Workforce

The decision of Claudine Gay to resign as president of Harvard on December 2, after a long and ugly battle with self-appointed experts, reveals how the United States has been transformed by the concentration of wealth and the consequences of having that much power in the hands of billionaires for education, for journalism, and for the basic rights of citizens.

The attempt to silence the president of Harvard University through a coordinated attack by the commercial media, Republican Party operatives and the Congress itself, and the private equity that controls the board of the Harvard Corporation itself marks a turning point. Education has ceased to be an independent space in American society, or in global society, where the pursuit of truth in a scientific manner can be undertaken. This means a serious degradation of education in America, and perhaps globally, as it becomes more like propaganda, and the campus more like “Disneyland with secret police.”

After all, Harvard is the place where the media, government, the military, academia and global finance come together and thus it is not surprising the global capital, understanding the brutal campaigns that will have to be launched at home in the months ahead, picked Harvard for its first real battle to turn the campus into a Gaza of the mind.

In this discussion with John Spritzler, editor of People for a Democratic Revolution Boston, I explore the background of Claudine Gay’s resignation and consider what it says about both Israel and the United States. This event, a intellectual Guernica, must be remembered, even if Professor Gay is a deeply compromised individual.