Implications of Dr. Gay on D.E.I., the Harvard Governing Body, and the Future of University Science: A Less Confusing Educator’s Perspective

There is more than enough context to go around now that Dr. Gay is out, following M. Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania who resigned shortly after the hearing. Her career, until last July a steady, brisk climb through faculty and administrative ranks to the pinnacle of American higher education, has become a punditic bonanza and a culture-war Rorschach test.

Others are pushing back. The billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban challenged Musk in a series of posts on X, defending the three principles of D.E.I. as good for business:

Having now seen how quickly the truth can become a casualty amid controversy, I’d urge a broader caution: At tense moments, every one of us must be more skeptical than ever of the loudest and most extreme voices in our culture, however well organized or well connected they might be. Too often they are pursuing self-serving agendas that should be met with more questions and less credulity.

In other university news, Sally Kornbluth, M.I.T.’s president who also faces calls to resign, announced four focuses for the school, including better understanding of free speech on campus and ensuring the efficacy of D.E.I. programs. And Penny Pritzker, the head of Harvard’s governing body, is resisting calls to resign over the Gay controversy.

New Constraints on the Disgraced Finitary: Jeff Epstein and the Xerox Corp. Filed under a Federal Judge’s Order

There are several associates of Jeffrey Epstein mentioned in the new documents. Released as part of a federal judge’s order, the documents identified people including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, the businessman Tom Pritzker and Prince Andrew of Britain, adding new context into the disgraced financier’s relationships over the years. (Neither Clinton nor Trump has been accused of committing crimes; Andrew settled a lawsuit by an accuser.) But the documents revealed few, if any, new smoking guns.

Employees critical of Musk were fired by the company. Eight workers who had circulated a letter calling on the company to distance itself from Musk’s social media posts, were wrongly dismissed, according to the National Labor Relations Board. The case will be heard in March.

Xerox will cut thousands of jobs. The company will lay off 15 percent of its global work force and make a new leadership team as they shift away from their core line of selling photocopiers. On Wednesday, Xerox shares fell by over 12 percent.