Washington Post reporter Julian Mark talks about the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay, and the broader movement to dismantle DEI practices in academia and corporate America. Also, TV critic David Bianculli reviews Monsieur Spade, starring Clive Owen on AMC. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
On the Ted radio hour, linguist Ann Curzan says she gets a lot of complaints about people using the pronoun they to refer to one person.
I sometimes get into arguments with people where they will say to me, but it can't be singular.
And I will say, but it is the history behind words causing a lot of debate.
That's on the Ted radio hour from NPR.
This is FRESH AIR.
I'm Tanya Moseley.
After Claudine Gay, Harvard's first black president, recently resigned, conservative activist Chris Ruffo posted on, quote, this is the beginning of the end for DEI in America's institutions.
RuFo is talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion, a set of values many corporations and educational institutions deploy to create environments that welcome people of all races, ethnicities, religions, genders, abilities, and sexual orientations.
After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, corporate America responded swiftly, pledging billions to DEI initiatives like creating racial justice programs and hiring more people of color.
And while Claudine Gaye's resignation from Harvard came after accusations of plagiarism and a fallout of her congressional hearing responses to anti semitism, her departure has opened the floodgates for the conservative effort to dismantle Dei.
Julian Mark has been covering Gay's resignation and what he says is a pivotal moment in the movement against DEI in every sector, from academia to corporate America.
Mark covers breaking business and technology news for the Washington Post.
And Julian Mark, welcome to Fresh Air.
Thanks for having me.
So, in response to the plagiarism allegations, Claudine Gaye wrote an op ed for the New York Times, and in it, she stated that she never misrepresented her research findings and that many scholars have since gone through her work and found a few instances of an adequate citation but no violation of Harvard's standard of research misconduct.
Remind us briefly how these accusations came to light and the pressure put on Harvard's board.
Well, it really begins with congressional testimony in front of Congress in which Claudine Gaye, along with two other university presidents, are testifying about anti semitism on their campuses and protests that are related to the war in Gaza.
Many critics said that their answers, when asked whether or not calls for genocide against Jews violated the rules of conduct, many critics said that those answers were overly legalistic and did not adequately denounce calls for violence against jews.
So there began a very sort of concerted push to have all of those presidents removed.
One of them, Liz McGill, was pressured from her post in relatively short order.