Harvard President Claudine Gay announced her resignation from office last week. Most of us are not privy to full and accurate background here. Can we just say what this looks like from a distance?

To me, we have witnessed a brilliant Black woman under escalating pressures forced to resign under the cloud of (1) an academic plagiarism investigation and (2) the public and political reaction to her Congressional testimony.

On the first point, at least from what has been reported, the almost gleeful discovery of several instances of “duplicative language without appropriate attribution,” seems to fall somewhat short of a significant ethical breach. Moreover, as an associate editor of a scientific journal and expert reviewer of clinical research literature, I can say that inadequate referencing or citation is an all too common weakness, typically careless, typically of little consequence and readily correctable.

On the second point, one week ago, three accomplished scholars and university presidents, including President Gay, fell into the trap of theoretically and intellectually trying to underscore the sanctity of free speech on campus. Their failure to instantly and perhaps emotionally acknowledge the obscenity of overt hatred on campus was, in retrospect, a serious strategic error.

The apparent Congressional expectation and desire for a black-and-white and politically expedient response was absent. Instead, aggressive and antagonistic questioning was met by meticulously qualified almost legalistic testimony by those committed to protecting academic freedom in our most valuable institutions.  

Academic freedom has always been both precious and fragile, ideally mandating that students must be free to express and change opinions and perceptions as they expand their funds of knowledge and experience and reel in the face the horrors of the world today. The university at its best must be a place where stakeholders can disagree with a viewpoint without consequence, except for the possibility of learning. The unique standard condition of the university must be a haven for free expression.

This is not to suggest that verbal attacks can’t sometimes be as devastating as physical ones. At the same time we must encourage free speech and “speaking truth to power,” we must also absolutely require humility, respect, tolerance and perspective.

Students (and politicians) sometimes fail to temper their passions with a thorough understanding of all the facts, and of the priorities and realities of civilized and compassionate discourse. That is what must be clearly and effectively addressed on a number of dimensions. Ejecting students and firing faculty and administrators does not solve the problem. Demonizing cultural and religious groups and character assassination are never right; marginalizing, demeaning and dismissing alternative views does little but sow the seeds of myopia, hatred, tyranny and injustice – all of which are antithetical to the tradition of the university.  

Rather than absorbing escalating strident and hyper-emotional attacks, rather than abruptly terminating university leaders who are clearly scapegoats, perhaps we should consider small open forums, on any virtual meeting platform at which students and representatives of faculty and administration would be invited to participate in genuine discussion, a well-mediated exchange of perceptions and of clarifying realities. In this way, the university’s priorities, the education of the students and the future of our country could be simultaneously served.

There is no easy solution to reconciliation of emotionally and politically charged expression in an environment that strives to be safe, peaceful and conducive to learning.  But sometimes the unavoidable clash of these priorities leads to a society’s growth; consider the student protests at Berkeley and Kent State, which were tragic black marks in some ways but also arguably motivated the end of United States’ involvement in the war in Vietnam.  

It’s not clear what history will ultimately say about all this, but one thing is clear. There is no place for what amounts to simplistic, strident, self-serving and relentless attack of the university, one of the few institutions that keeps us at all human.

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