Harvard's president and the new McCarthyism.
With the end of World War II, a national campaign began which called for the dismissal of liberals, progressives, socialists and Communist Party members from teaching positions and calling for implementing loyalty oaths for faculty at colleges and universities.
This marked the beginning of what is now referred to as McCarthyism.
It did not take long for the Red Scare to move beyond educational institutions into all areas of American life.
Thousands of people were targeted.
My own family included.
The forced resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay, effective immediately is disturbing to say the least.
Her six-month tenure, the shortest in the university’s history, was engineered by millionaire Harvard donors and MAGA politicians.
She was the first African American and and only the second woman to lead the elite institution in its 388-year history.
Charges of plagiarism on her part only emerged to justify her dismissal.
The claim that she was not sufficiently pro-Israel was equally bogus.
I remember this joke about a cop beating up a guy on a picket line and calling him a communist.
“But I’m an anti-communist,” the guy on the line said.
“I don’t care what kind of communist you are,” said the cop.
The joke is the perfect metaphor for what happened to Claudine Gay.
Many students at Harvard and other university campuses - some of our most elite universities - have been protesting U.S. support of Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Good for them.
By attacking Gay, the attempt is to create the illusion that the protests of Israel constitute anti-semitism, that they advocate the destruction of the state of Israel and the genocide of Jews.
This line of attack turns reality on its head.
Gay, along with University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) President Sally Kornbluth, were hauled before the US House Committee on Education & the Workforce on December 5.
It looked to me like a session of the House Committee on UnAmerian Activities (HUAC).
MAGA Congress member Elise Stefanik played the role of HUAC’s Martin Dies Jr.
Stefanik demanded to know if “calling for the genocide of Jews” violated their institutions’ policies.
It echoed of HUAC chair Martin Dies 70 years ago, demanding to know, “Are you now or ever been a member of the Communist Party”
No group of peace activists at Harvard had demanded any such thing.
During the McCarthy era many otherwise good folks remained silent. They were too frightened to defend those under attack for fear of being labeled Reds themselves.
We can’t let that happen again.