Harvard President’s Ouster Leads to Concerns about Academic Freedom

Harvard President’s Ouster Leads to Concerns about Academic Freedom

哈佛大学校长的罢免引发了对学术自由的担忧

【听力音频】

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　　By Dan Friedell

　　06 January 2024

　　Harvard University's Claudine Gay recently became the second Ivy League president to step down under pressure from alumni, political activists and supporters of the University.

　　Gay was the first Black president of Harvard and second woman to lead the university. She started the job only six months ago.

　　Gay and two other presidents were widely criticized after making controversial comments to the U.S. Congress in December.

　　Gay, along with Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, were called to Washington to discuss American lawmakers' concerns about antisemitism on college campuses. Antisemitism is the hatred of Jewish people.

　　The U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Education chose the presidents because their schools had "been at the center of the rise in antisemitic protests," a committee spokesperson said in a statement.

　　The protests were related to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

　　Harvard graduate Elise Stefanik of New York is part of the Republican-led committee. She asked each university leader about how their school would react to calls to kill large numbers of Jews, something described as genocide.

　　Stefanik asked Magill: "Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's rules or code of conduct? Yes or no?" Penn is the University of Pennsylvania, a member of the Ivy League.

　　She asked the same question of Gay and Kornbluth.

　　None of the school leaders were able to clearly say calling for the death of Jews violated school rules.

　　The presidents were sharply criticized for their lack of clarity. Within a few days, influential members of the University of Pennsylvania community pushed Magill to resign.

　　For a time, it looked as if Gay's job was safe. She received support from some notable professors at Harvard, including legal scholar Laurence Tribe.

　　Tribe said "it is dangerous for universities to be ... bullied into micromanaging their policies." He was talking about the way some activists and politicians seemed to be pushing the universities toward their preferred result.

　　One of those activists is Christopher Rufo. Rufo is a member of the leadership group that oversees New College of Florida. With the support of Governor Ron DeSantis, Rufo and others have been pushing the small college to change its curriculum.

　　After Gay announced her resignation on January 2, Rufo wrote words of celebration on X, formerly known as Twitter. He and other conservatives believe American higher education has too many liberal people in leadership roles.

　　Gay's position at Harvard looked safe in December. So what changed?

　　In the weeks following the congressional hearing, some critics charged Gay with using "duplicative language" in academic writing. To duplicate means to make an exact copy of something.

　　They also said Gay had plagiarized -- or claimed others' writing as her own.

　　The charges, however, did not come from those working in higher education. They came from people like Rufo who are working to push out higher education leaders they do not agree with.

　　At first, Harvard said it did not consider Gay's work to be "intentional or reckless." But pressure continued.

　　Many observers believe the conservative activists felt Gay only received Harvard's presidency because she was a Black woman.

　　On X, Rufo wrote that he was establishing a "plagiarism hunting fund" as a way to oust university leaders and bring attention to the "rot in the Ivy League."

　　Gay wrote a letter to the Harvard community announcing she was leaving her position "with a heavy heart." She also said it was frightening to be attacked due to her race. Gay said she would remain at Harvard as a professor.

　　Plagiarism complaints as a tool

　　Academic experts who have been following the pressure campaign on Gay say the plagiarism accusations only came after it looked like she would not lose her job.

　　They worry that people who do not like the leaders of major American universities will now research their academic writing in search of duplications and poor citations.

　　Davarian Baldwin is a historian at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He writes about race and higher education. Baldwin said Gay made mistakes in her writing and noted that anti-plagiarism software will make it easy for critics to find problematic writing by college leaders and professors.

　　The tools are designed to help educators learn whether their students' writings are their own. But Baldwin said the tools can be dangerous if they fall into the hands of people who want to argue that academia is full of corrupt and incompetent people. Incompetent means someone lacks the ability to do something well.

　　Irene Mulvey is president of the American Association of University Professors. She said plagiarism investigations could be "weaponized" to push out presidents.

　　She said she is concerned that conservative activists will use the successful campaign against Gay as a method to push out other academic leaders.

　　"For presidents to be taken down like this, it does not bode well for academic freedom," she said.

　　I'm Dan Friedell. And I'm Gena Bennett.

　　Dan Friedell adapted this story for Learning English based on a report by the Associated Press.

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　　作者：Dan Friedell

　　2024年1月6日

　　哈佛大学的克劳丁·盖伊（Claudine Gay）最近在校友、政治活动家和大学支持者的压力下，成为第二位辞职的常春藤联盟大学校长。

　　盖伊是哈佛的首位黑人校长，也是该校的第二位女性领导。她仅在六个月前开始担任这个职务。

　　去年12月，盖伊和其他两位校长在对美国国会的发言中引发了争议，遭到了广泛的批评。

　　盖伊，以及麻省理工学院的萨莉·科恩布鲁斯和宾夕法尼亚大学的利兹·马吉尔，被召至华盛顿，讨论美国立法者对大学校园内反犹太主义的担忧。反犹太主义是指对犹太人的仇恨。

　　美国众议院教育委员会选择了这些校长，因为他们的学校“一直是反犹太抗议活动增加的中心”，委员会发言人在一份声明中说。

　　这些抗议活动与以色列和哈马斯之间的持续冲突有关。

　　纽约的哈佛大学毕业生、共和党领导的委员会成员埃莉斯·斯特凡尼克询问了每位大学领导，他们的学校会如何应对呼吁大规模杀害犹太人的行为，这种行为被描述为种族灭绝。

　　斯特凡尼克问马吉尔：“呼吁进行犹太人种族灭绝是否违反宾大的规定或行为准则？是或否？”宾大是常春藤联盟成员之一的宾夕法尼亚大学。

　　她向盖伊和科恩布鲁斯提出了同样的问题。

　　这些学校的领导人都无法明确地说出呼吁杀害犹太人是否违反了学校的规定。

　　这些校长因为他们的模糊回答而受到了严厉的批评。在几天内，宾夕法尼亚大学社区的一些有影响力的成员要求马吉尔辞职。

　　一度，盖伊的职位看起来是安全的。她得到了哈佛大学一些知名教授的支持，包括法学学者劳伦斯·特赖布。

　　特赖布说，“让大学被……威胁到对他们的政策进行微观管理是危险的。”他在谈论一些活动家和政治家似乎在推动大学朝他们期望的结果发展的方式。

　　其中一位活动家是克里斯托弗·鲁福。鲁福是监督佛罗里达新学院的领导小组的成员。在罗恩·德桑蒂斯州长的支持下，鲁福和其他人一直在推动这所小学院改变其课程。

　　在盖伊1月2日宣布辞职后，鲁福在X上（原名推特）发表了庆祝的言论。他和其他保守派人士认为，美国的高等教育领导岗位上有太多的自由派人士。

　　12月份时，盖伊在哈佛的职位看似稳固。那么，发生了什么变化呢？

　　在国会听证会之后的几周里，一些批评者指责盖伊在学术写作中使用了“重复的语言”。重复是指对某物进行完全复制。

　　他们还说盖伊抄袭了——或者说，她将他人的作品声称为自己的。

　　然而，这些指控并不来自高等教育工作者，而是来自像鲁福这样的人，他们正在努力推翻他们不同意的高等教育领导人。

　　起初，哈佛表示并不认为盖伊的工作是“故意或鲁莽的”。但压力仍在继续。

　　许多观察者认为，保守派活动家们认为盖伊只是因为她是一名黑人女性才获得了哈佛的校长职位。

　　在X上，鲁福写道，他正在设立一个“抄袭猎捕基金”，以此作为推翻大学领导人并引起人们对“常春藤联盟的腐败”关注的方式。

　　盖伊写了一封给哈佛社区的信，宣布她“怀着沉重的心情”离开自己的职位。她还说，因为自己的种族而受到攻击是令人恐惧的。盖伊说，她将继续在哈佛担任教授。

　　抄袭投诉作为工具

　　一直在关注对盖伊压力运动的学术专家表示，只有在看起来她不会失去工作后，抄袭指控才会出现。

　　他们担心，那些不喜欢美国主要大学领导人的人现在会研究他们的学术写作，寻找重复和引用不当的地方。

　　达瓦里安·鲍德温是康涅狄格州哈特福德三一学院的历史学家。他写关于种族和高等教育的文章。鲍德温说，盖伊在她的写作中犯了错误，并指出反抄袭软件将使批评者很容易找到大学领导人和教授的有问题的写作。

　　这些工具的设计目的是帮助教育工作者了解他们的学生的作品是否是他们自己的。但鲍德温说，如果这些工具落入那些想要声称学术界充满腐败和无能之人的手中，那么它们可能会变得危险。无能意味着某人缺乏做好某事的能力。

　　艾琳·穆尔维是美国大学教授协会的主席。她说，抄袭调查可能被“武器化”，以推翻校长。

　　她说，她担心保守派活动家会使用对盖伊的成功运动作为一种方法，推翻其他学术领导人。

　　她说：“校长们如此被拉下马，这对学术自由并不是好兆头。”

　　我是Dan Friedell。我是Gena Bennett。

　　Dan Friedell根据美联社的报道为英语学习改编了这个故事。

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　　这个故事中的词汇

　　alumni –n. 从学校或大学毕业的人

　　campus –n. 大学或大学建筑物的实际位置

　　code of conduct –n. 关于如何参与某个团体的规则，比如如何成为大学的学生

　　bully –v. 恐吓、伤害或威胁（较小或较弱的人）：对（某人）表现出欺凌行为

　　micromanage –v. 试图控制所有事物的各个部分，通常这种方式是不受欢迎的

　　preferred –adj. 在多个事物中更好的选择

　　curriculum –n.教授或学校为学生设立的学习计划

　　preferred –adj.在多个事物中更好的选择

　　rot –n. 衰败或健康缺失

　　bode well –v. 对某事的未来感到积极