Harvard Names Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to Succeed Claudine Gay As Its President

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has been tapped to lead Harvard to succeed Claudine Gay, who was forced to resign after being targeted by right-wing activists and Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) over allegations of plagiarism and having made a lukewarm response to antisemitism on campus.

 

Austin, a career Army guy, has caused considerable embarrassment to President Biden for not notifying him or the Pentagon for receiving a medical procedure without telling anyone.

 

Austin is well known for being a total introvert. His decision not to let his hospitalization be known ahead of time provoked calls from, guess who, Congressional Republicans, to resign: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/07/austin-has-long-been-a-quiet-operator-that-just-backfired-on-him-00134199.

 

Into this crisis leaped Penny Pritzker, who oversees the Harvard Corporation, which pressed Gay to resign from her position as President of Harvard after only six months on the job.

 

All this has been duly noted by associate solitary reporter Keith Coleman and his assistant, newly minted associate solitary reporter Christine Coates, a cousin of CNN news anchor Laura Coates.

 

Pritzker told Coleman and Coates that “I am sure that Secretary Austin will find that the presidency of Harvard is much less stressful than being Secretary of Defense.”

 

The Harvard Corporation is set to vote tomorrow on Austin to be Harvard’s thirty-first President.