The professor and author plagiarized by the erstwhile Harvard president Claudine Gay told The Maine Wire she would support Rep. Elise Stefanik (R.-N.Y.), the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, who helped take down two Ivy League presidents in 30 days, to be the Secretary of Education.
“First, I would say that we need good people in Congress, and I think she’s doing an excellent job where she is, and I would hate to lose her position to someone that might have lesser skills,” said Professor Carol Swain, author of the 1993 book, “Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress,” her seminal political science study of black representatives Congress.
“As far as her becoming the education secretary, I know she likes my work, which would suggest she would take a strong stance against critical race theory and the DEI programs that violate the Constitution and equal protection clause,” Swain said.
“We need someone that will move the education needle away from the indoctrination and the social engineering back towards the basics of learning,” she said.
The academic retired from Vanderbilt University in 2017, who was just appointed a senior fellow at the Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Institute for Faith & Culture, said she is in contact with Stefanik’s office and she expects to meet up with the congresswoman soon.
Swain: Harvard needs to become the Bud Light of higher education
Gay resigned under pressure from Swain, and the expose by Christopher Rufo and Aaron Sibarium, who documented how Gay, who also wrote about her studies of black political participation in general, Congress and the California legislature, lifted wording and concepts from Swain and others.
The Rufo and Sibarium analysis of Gay’s plagiarism on the heels of her Dec. 5 congressional testimony, when she, along with University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth, stumbled and fumbled the ball when Stefanik asked them if calling for the genocide of the Jews was a violation of their schools’ codes of conduct.
After the fallout from the testimony, highlighted by Gay’s insistence on parsing the context of when someone calls for the genocide of the Jews, Magill resigned Dec. 9, and Gay fell on her sword Jan. 2—after decades of conservatives carping about leftwing control of colleges—Stefanik, along with Swain, Rufo and Sibarium, took down two leftist college president’s at two Ivy League schools.
Swain said she was shocked by the testimony by Gay, Magill and Kornbluth.
“Their testimony was so appalling, and the question she asked them was so simplistic,” she said.
The co-author of the new book, “The Adversity of Diversity: How The Supreme Court’s Decision To Remove Race From College Admissions Criteria Will Doom Diversity Programs,” also rejected Gay’s claim in a New York Times guest essay that she was the victim of a trap.
And at a congressional hearing last month, I fell into a well-laid trap. I neglected to clearly articulate that calls for the genocide of Jewish people are abhorrent and unacceptable and that I would use every tool at my disposal to protect students from that kind of hate.
“It was just a plain question where anyone without coaching from a lawyer just would know,” she said.
“Calling for the genocide of any group, you would think that intuitively, or it would just be an immediate know that the universities would take a stance against that. It would violate their policies,” she said.
Swain said the only trap was the Gay did not respect Stefanik.
“Someone was saying that maybe some good would come out of what happened, and my response was pretty much: ‘I don’t see Harvard right now. I see no good that comes from that unless it becomes the Bud Light of higher education.’”
The good news could be if other schools got the message.
“If other schools see Harvard sinking, then they might adjust what they’re doing.”
Other conservatives weigh in on Stefanik leading Education Department
Vish Burra, the executive secretary of the New York Young Republicans Club, told The Maine Wire he has tremendous respect for Stefanik, and she will make a great Education Secretary.
“Chairwoman Stefanik is highly astute, not just as a political operator, but just in terms of professionalism and how she would do the job itself,” Burra said.
Burra said when Stefanik proved herself in the hearings with the three college presidents.
“The thing is, is that she was ready for that, right? That’s the thing, she’s prepared for the big moment,” the Staten Island native said.
“That’s actually what makes Elise great—she will rise to the challenge,” he said.
“I have a lot of faith in her, and I think she’s got the right voice for the education needs of our country right now, especially with school choice charter schools—she’s really good on all those issues,” he said.
Burra, who was a producer for Stephen K. Bannon’s War Room, said he is confident if she led the Department of Education, she would not allow herself to be coopted by the civil service bureaucrats, a temptation Washington conservatives call: marrying with the natives.
“She has one of the most sophisticated political operations on the ground back in her district, which is well known in New York,” she said. “She’s very highly capable, but as a leader, she is ready and proven.”
A national political operative with ties to the Trump world told The Maine Wire Stefanik scored the most significant conservative victory in the battle for control of the classrooms in decades.
“I can’t think of anyone in the last 30 years who has had the impact on correcting America’s failing education system, and she did it in that congressional hearing,” the operative said.
“She proved her mettle in taking on the elite of the elite when she took Harvard and the Ivys head-on and won,” the operative said.
“Elise went to Harvard, so she was trained by elites—it’s clear she knows how to destroy them from within—this is exactly what the MAGA movement needs in the next Education Secretary,” they said.
“This is exactly what the Trump administration would need to take on the teachers’ union and Randi Weingartner as they continue the parental rights movement sweeping the country,” they said.
Michael Patrick Leahy, the host of The Tennessee Star Report radio show, said he is a massive fan of Stefanik, with whom he shares background.
“I think Elise Stefanik is doing a great job in Congress,” he said. “She represents the Upstate New York district where I grew up as a kid, and like me, she went to Harvard.”
Leahy said as much as he admires Stefanik, he has other plans for the Education Department.
“The US Department of Education should be abolished,” he said. “I think there are a lot of other high-profile jobs in the next Trump administration where she could make a great contribution.”
Raheem Williams, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, said he has seen first-hand, as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, that Ivy League academics do not respect conservatives.
“They do fundamentally believe conservatives are stupid,” he said.
“They don’t believe there’s anything such; there’s no such thing as a conservative intellectual. They are vaguely aware that people like Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, or Walter Williams exist,” he said.
“To the extent that they are aware, they only know that they’re supposed to dislike them,” he said. “It’s not rare to have a professor mouthing off about how evil conservatives and Republicans are and how the right is a threat.”
Williams said he did not want Stefanik to leave Congress, where she has a reputation for going after witnesses.
“It’s like if you put her in a Secretary of Education seat, she wouldn’t necessarily get to grill academics that way,” he said.
“Would it be more advantageous to get her a Senate seat or a higher position in leadership in Congress?”
