Press Releases

In Case You Missed It, via the Daily Caller, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) wrote an op-ed in response to former Harvard President Gay’s recent attempts to absolve herself of any wrongdoing, going so far as to paint herself as a victim of political retribution. Chairwoman Foxx also highlights the bold reforms the Committee is pursuing to improve the nation’s postsecondary education system. 

Claudine Gay Is No Martyr
By Rep. Virginia Foxx
January 19, 2024

For three minutes and twenty-eight seconds on Dec. 5, Claudine Gay was thrust into the limelight in my hearing room.

She may not have known it at the time, but the embattled ex-president revealed her unfitness as a university leader at the witness table. The clip of her catastrophic answer to a routine question amassed hundreds of millions of views online. Soon after, nearly 50 instances of plagiarism were revealed from her past works, and thereafter she found herself submitting a farewell op-ed to The New York Times.
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Gay’s choice to center her farewell essay on the theme of truth is unmistakably brazen. Truth may be the translation of Harvard’s founding motto, Veritas, but it is the antithesis of the academic crime of which she is accused.

Gay insists in her final public act that her scholarship was unassailable. 
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The truth is this: Gay’s plagiarism was an offense that Harvard students are subject to expulsion and suspension for. Confronted with a crisis of antisemitism on her campus, Gay failed to do her duty to protect Harvard’s Jewish students. 
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While Gay’s presence — or absence — at the head of Harvard was immaterial to the goal of the Committee on Education and the Workforce when we sat down for testimony on Dec. 5, her farewell essay embodies the issues that we seek to address through legislative work.
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Politics have taken over college campuses and done great institutional damage to universities like Harvard. Look no further than dogmatic defense of Gay by the Harvard Corporation and other academics.
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There must be a realignment of university incentives with truth-seeking values. Accountability is needed now more than ever to ensure postsecondary education lives up to its promise.

The Committee has a bold vision for accountability. The structure we are building ensures universities are open and transparent about foreign funding, focused on increasing student outcomes and lowering costs, improving speech policies on campus, and other contributing factors to the decline in public faith in universities. 

Universities also have a role to play moving forward. While invariably a national restoration of university culture will take congressional effort, academics and administrators must learn from their disgraced colleague at Harvard. Where Claudine Gay was divisive, they must be tolerant. Where she was dishonest, they must be truth-seeking. Where she was self-serving, they must serve the national interest.

Only then can America reclaim the mantle as the best postsecondary educator in the world.

Read Chairwoman Foxx’s full op-ed here.