The real story of Harvard isn’t Claudine Gay’s firing

The most important point about ousted Harvard president Claudine Gay's plagiarism isn’t that she was fired (or was allowed to resign) but rather that she had the job — the most prestigious job in higher education — with such a thin record of academic accomplishment.

Gay has never published an article — even a plagiarized one — that really mattered or advanced scholarship significantly. She got her job not through merit but because she checked a box. In this, she is not an outlier but a representative of a system of education that rewards mediocrity.

These experts are not smart or accomplished. They have a credential from an institution that cares more about box-checking than merit.

Our entire elite is like this. People who got their jobs because they checked boxes, not because they achieved something amazing or accomplished something meaningful. That is now the purpose of our elite universities: to give credentials that signal fake merit rather than rely on real excellence.

This is why you should mock the public health experts who want you to mask toddlers in their schools to stop the spread of a respiratory virus. These public health experts are not smart or accomplished. They have a credential from an institution that cares more about box-checking than merit.

This is why you should ignore the economists who tell you that mass migration raises the wages of the working class or has no effect on housing prices, even though I’ve heard from multiple corporate leaders that they want more immigration in order to pay their workers lower wages. These economists are not smart or accomplished. They have a credential from an institution that cares more about box-checking than merit.

This is why you should laugh at the foreign policy experts who will tell you that we should allow East Asia to make all of our steel, phones, and pharmaceuticals while sending all of our weapons to a war in Eastern Europe that has little to do with our core national interests. These foreign policy experts are not smart or accomplished. They have a credential from an institution that cares more about box-checking than merit.

This is why you should scorn the attorneys who tell you that Donald Trump committed “insurrection” and should be thrown off the ballot. They have no special legal knowledge. They are political hacks pretending to be lawyers, and they are not smart or accomplished. They have a credential from an institution that cares more about box-checking than merit.

This is why you should question the doctors who tell you to prescribe experimental pharmaceuticals to gender-confused children. These doctors are not smart or accomplished. They have a credential from an institution that cares more about box-checking than merit.

The real story of Harvard is not Claudine Gay's firing but this: you are ruled by thousands of people who are just as mediocre. Their power relies on tax advantages from the federal government, a DEI bureaucracy backed by Joe Biden's Department of Justice, and the implicit consent of millions of Americans.

I say we withdraw that consent and all the favors that come along with it.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally as a post on X (formerly Twitter).