New York Times and Washington Post call for Harvard president Claudine Gay's resignation

Both the New York Times and the Washington Post have published op-eds in recent days calling for Harvard President Claudine Gay to resign, but not because of her inability to call Hamas's indiscriminate killing of Israelis on Oct. 7 evil.

"She plagiarized her acknowledgments. I take no joy in saying this, but Harvard President Claudine Gay ought to resign. Her track record is unbefitting the president of the country’s premier university," Washington Post associate editor Ruth Marcus wrote in an editorial Saturday titled, "Harvard’s Claudine Gay should resign."

John McWhorter similarly focused on Gay's plagiarism in the Times and said that having a black woman stay in her position is "a bad look" and could convey favoritism.

Keeping her as president would show "that a middling publication record and chronically lackadaisical attention to crediting sources is somehow OK for a university president if she is Black," which would not be right, he said.

Harvard shows no sign of removing Gay, in which case McWhorter said she should step down on her own.

Plagiarism is a very serious issue for college students, so to allow a top administrator to get away with it is certainly unbecoming the nation's top university.