Recent headlines about UCLA School of Medicine suggest that the institution has lost its focus. Instead of brushing up on organic chemistry, its students were subjected to lessons on “Indigenous womxn” and “two-spirits.” Future doctors had to take a class on “structural racism” and were led in a “Free Palestine” chant by a Hamas-praising guest speaker. The school made plans to segregate students by race for courses on left-wing ideology, and two of its psychiatry residents championed “revolutionary suicide.”

Harvard University has shed fresh light on the ongoing investigation into plagiarism accusations against former president Claudine Gay, including that an independent body recommended a broader review after substantiating some of the complaints.

In a letter Friday to a congressional committee, Harvard said it learned of the plagiarism allegations against its first Black female president on Oct. 24 from a New York Post reporter. The school reached out to several authors whom Gay is accused of plagiarizing and none objected to her language, it said.

It’s said that these days universities are echo chambers, but perhaps nobody expected it to be demonstrated quite so literally. At the beginning of the month, Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned following weeks of plagiarism allegations. Some of these were unambiguous: whole paragraphs replicated with minimal alteration in a way that couldn’t easily be explained away as accidental.

American higher education has long viewed plagiarism as a cardinal sin. Accusations of academic dishonesty have ruined the careers of faculty and undergraduates alike.

The latest target is Harvard President Claudine Gay, who resigned Tuesday. In her case, the outrage came not from her academic peers but her political foes, led by conservatives who put her career under intense scrutiny.

The Associated Press was mocked on social media Wednesday after publishing an article blaming conservatives for using plagiarism as a new “weapon” after Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned amid extensive plagiarism allegations. 

The Associated Press was blasted and forced to make a humiliating U-turn after they published an article about Claudine Gay's resignation with a sensational headline that said plagiarism was a 'new conservative weapon.' 

Gay, 53, resigned as the President of Harvard University on Tuesday in a bitter letter to colleagues and students.

I had written and filed a column about Harvard and its president, Claudine Gay, when news of her resignation broke on Tuesday afternoon after fresh allegations of plagiarism in her published work. I’d like to record what I wrote: “Cancel culture is always ugly and usually a mistake. If Gay is to go, let it be after more deliberation, with more decorum, and when pundits like me aren’t writing about her.” Oh, well.

In a few years, no one will remember ex-Harvard president Claudine Gay’s plagiarism kerfuffle. 

All we’ll remember is that that she angered some rich pro-Israel donors, as well as opportunistic activists and politicians, and they got her fired.

That should be chilling.

It’s hardly a shock that Claudine Gay finally walked the plank at Harvard.

In a head-spinning series of developments, she had been exposed as indifferent to antisemitism, an academic fraud and a symbol of everything wrong with American higher education. 

Because there was no legitimate case for keeping her on the job, her departure was only a matter of time.

I predicted the end would come during the Christmas-New Year break, when the campus is quiet and most students and faculty are away.