Update, on Tuesday morning, Harvard released a statement supporting Claudine Gay. Here is an excerpt:

So many people have suffered tremendous damage and pain because of Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack, and the University’s initial statement should have been an immediate, direct, and unequivocal condemnation. Calls for genocide are despicable and contrary to fundamental human values. President Gay has apologized for how she handled her congressional testimony and has committed to redoubling the University’s fight against antisemitism.

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With regard to President Gay’s academic writings, the University became aware in late October of allegations regarding three articles. At President Gay’s request, the Fellows promptly initiated an independent review by distinguished political scientists and conducted a review of her published work. On December 9, the Fellows reviewed the results, which revealed a few instances of inadequate citation. While the analysis found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications.

In this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay. At Harvard, we champion open discourse and academic freedom, and we are united in our strong belief that calls for violence against our students and disruptions of the classroom experience will not be tolerated. 

Tuesday, December 12, 2023: Christopher Rufo reported in City Journal serious, credible charges of plagiarism involving Harvard President Claudine Gay:

Yesterday, journalist Christopher Brunet and I broke a story examining evidence that strongly suggests that Harvard president Claudine Gay plagiarized multiple sections of her Ph.D. dissertation, according to Harvard’s own academic integrity policies. One of the scholars that Gay used material from in at least two instances was Carol Swain, who has served as a professor at Princeton and Vanderbilt. Swain is also known as one of America’s most prominent black conservatives and has published scholarly work criticizing race-based preferences and affirmative action.

This morning, I spoke with Swain, who said that she saw “a clear pattern of what one would consider plagiarism in Dr. Gay’s thesis” and called into question Gay’s continued service as Harvard’s president. The following transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Read more at Christopher Rufo substack.

When President Bill Clinton lied under oath in 1998 concerning his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, I said his act of crafty defiance had opened a perilous window over our nation. I believed at that moment that a principality of perjury and a spirit of sexual chaos had been released to wreak deception and moral mayhem across America. This portal was willfully unlocked by the president of the United States, and all of heaven was watching.

Have you taken your place on the wall?

Of course, presidents had lied before Clinton’s derelict display, and presidents have lied since, but that immoral sexual act of his took place inside the most revered office in the world. Today, as we behold the relentless demolition derby of evil shaking up the moral foundations of our country, I firmly believe that that moment was a spiritual turning point and something we need to pray never happens again.

When the highest leader in the land stands up in a hallowed chamber that belongs to We the People, places his hand on the Bible, and willfully tells lies, our bones should tremble while our knees hit the floor.

Likewise, imagine how the demons charged with confusing our children about their sex and gender raucously cheered when Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson claimed to be unable to state publicly what a woman is. Note: This little travesty also took place inside one of the highest chambers of our land.

So this week as I watched the presidents of three prestigious universities smirk, shirk, and equivocate in answering a simple yes-or-no question at a congressional hearing, I knew we were witnessing yet another unholy national moment.

And what was the question posed to these three professorial imposters by the Committee on Education and the Workforce at the hearing?

Does an on-campus call for “the genocide of the Jews” constitute a violation of the school’s code of conduct with regard to bullying and harassment?

Astonishingly, not one of these presidents — of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania — would answer plainly “yes.” As heaven and the nation watched these three women contort themselves in unsophisticated legalese, it was obvious once again that yet another hallowed hall had been reduced to a three-ring circus at which leaders were more comfortable lying than telling the truth.

By now, most of you have watched clips of the damning hearing, so I will not recount the details. A short, jaw-dropping compilation can be seen here.

No one was more aghast than Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., as she masterfully held her boot on the tails of these slithering presidents. Fantastically, these same presidents have bloviated for years about the dangers of microaggressions, conservative speakers, misgendering, and white privilege.

Intifada? OK … But Watch Your Pronouns!

How remarkable that calling someone by the “wrong” personal pronoun is an expulsive offense, but a literal call for intifada across the campus quad is viewed as merely an “expression” of “protected speech.”

What we are witnessing is the inescapable evolution of cultural Marxism. The engine room of cultural Marxism and critical theory is “identitarian collectivism.” The social-justice game is played by first separating society into two groups: the oppressed, and the oppressors. (The first glaring problem with this pernicious exercise is that We the People get no say in how these teams are selected. Only the elite game makers are permitted to set up the board.)

Once accomplished, the instructions on the box top are devilishly predictable.

First, you’re asked to shove all your game pieces onto the plots of the oppressed. Next, you are to aim all your turrets toward the eyes of the oppressors. Finally, the elites get to sit back and watch the bodies pile up.

If t seems to be a delusional conclusion that social justice and political correctness can become fuel for mass genocide, pay closer attention. It is estimated that at least 100 million people were killed in the 20th century, not because of war, but simply at the hands of totalitarian governments. Using Marx’s playbook, consider the genocides of the Ottomans, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.

Canadian psychologist, author, and media commentator Jordan Peterson became famous for refusing to adhere to his employer’s demands on forced speech. Canada’s Bill C-16 legislated that transgenders must be addressed using their self-prescribed, made-up personal pronouns. Peterson did not refuse based on gender or sexuality. Instead, having studied the totalitarian abuses of the 20th century, he refused to cede the linguistic territory to compelled speech.

Years later, in his renowned interview with English journalist Cathy Newman, Peterson unfurled more of his underlying formularies on the dangers of social justice and compelled speech.

Newman: You’ve called trans campaigners authoritarian. Isn’t that right?

Peterson: Only in the broader context of my claims that radical leftist ideologues are authoritarian. Which they are.

Newman: You’re saying that trans activists could lead to the deaths of millions of people?

Peterson: No, I’m saying that the philosophy that drives their utterances is the same philosophy that already has driven us to the deaths of millions of people.

Newman: Okay, tell us how that philosophy is in any way comparable.

Peterson: Sure, that’s no problem. The first thing is that their philosophy presumes that group identity is paramount. That’s the fundamental philosophy that drove the Soviet Union, and Mao in China. And it’s the fundamental philosophy of the left-wing activists in identity politics. It doesn’t matter who you are as an individual, it matters who you are in terms of your group identity.

As we mourn the conditions here in post–George Floyd America, the imposition of oppressive collectives could not be clearer. The racists versus the anti-racists; the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated; the gender normative versus the gender non-binary; the inclusive versus the intolerant — and the list goes on.

But Marxist ideology always ends up rearing its ugly head to eat itself.

History tells us that the Jews are among the most easily identifiable oppressed groups of all time. Thousands of years of oppression, replete with slavery, banishment from their homeland, destruction of their sacred temples, and actual genocide must surely cause the game makers to take careful consideration of their plight. But tragically, the answer is no.

Unthinkably, the game makers have proved to us that they concoct the rules while they play. We are suddenly being forced to believe that one of the most oppressed people groups in the history of the world should now not only be considered violent oppressors but also as being deserving of insatiable hatred from within our university systems.

Why Serpents Don’t Wear Earrings

When mobs of pro-Palestinian students take over the UPenn campus demanding, “Death to the Jews!” and university President Liz Magill dismisses any allegations of harassment as a being a “context-dependent decision,” we can be sure that commonsense virtue has been wholly lost. (Magill resigned as president over the weekend.)

When indoctrinated activists at Harvard chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” and force their Jewish classmates to shelter in their dorms, and Harvard President Claudine Gay’s response is, “Only if it’s targeted at an individual,” we can be sure that Jewish individuals are being dehumanized on college campuses.

When radicalized undergrads block a dorm road at MIT shouting, “Intifada! Intifada!” and MIT President Sally Kornbluth’s response is, “I have not heard calling for the genocide of Jews on campus,” we can be sure of the reason serpents don’t wear earrings.

I find myself wondering: If hordes of white students were to menacingly disrupt campus activities by marching around with painted placards that read, “Enslave All Blacks!” — would those three universities lawyer up to protect that as free speech?

Of course not. Nor should they.

The radicalized left is shrewdly using our own laws against us. If it is universally agreed that shouting, “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater is not protected speech, then it is equally agreed that no segment of humanity should be publicly marked out for genocide. And herein lies the trap of cultural Marxism for the Christian.

The Christian heart has been softened with the love of Christ and therefore overflows with empathy for the marginalized. While we are taught to care for widows and orphans in their misfortune” (James 1:27 NET), Jesus also charges us to “Be wise as serpents” (Matthew 10:16 NET).

When the Holy Spirit inspired these words for us, He did not include a compromising provision for any oppressed groups as defined by Karl Marx. Identitarian collectives were not created in the image of Elohim. You were created in His image. I was created in His image. The abolishment of the individual for the sake of the collective is not only Marxist, but also anti-Christ.

Eve was deceived and Adam sinned because they fell prey to the subtle, shrewd, and beguiling lies of the serpent in the Garden. This is why we are called to obtain wisdom fitted to resist and subdue the hypnotic sorcery of the Enemy.

Father in heaven, we bow in reverence before Your throne, and we beseech You: Extend Your hand of favor over our Jewish brothers and sisters. May the land You have promised them be filled with shalom. We ask that Your Holy Spirit would be released in authority over our universities, so that hungry students will find the lasting truth they are searching for. May our country submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ, for You are a righteous ruler and worthy of our praise. Amen.

Share your own prayers below for the Jewish people and for Israel in these dark days.

Keith Guinta writes at www.winepatch.org. He is a husband, father, small-business owner, and worship leader. He has been a church planter, a pastor, a mountaineer, a stand-up comic, and an Ironman athlete and coach. Having led mission trips to Rwanda, Uganda, and India, Keith now focuses on his work rescuing girls from the sex trade in the Philippines with www.wipeeverytear.org. Photo Credit: JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty Images)