OPINION - Harvard and Claudine Gay’s total car crash has woken an old force in America

Harvard is on fire. The zenith of the American meritocracy and the dream of climbers everywhere started to burn after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel when a marching minority of students and groups of vocal faculty took up the Palestinian cause, confounding many of its students, their parents and key donors, particular the Jewish ones. Then Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, only recently in the job, went before Congress — never a smart place to be — and, with two other major university presidents, became a subject of national ridicule for her cringe-worthy and tone-deaf efforts to avoid a question about antisemitism. In the face of Right-wing excoriation, against Harvard and Gay, the first black person to be its president, Harvard’s own elite staunchly defended her — until last week, when they didn’t, and she had to go.