Rev. Al Sharpton received criticism from ex-ESPN host Sage Steele after claiming Harvard President Claudine Gay’s retirement is an “attack on every Black woman” in America who has “broken the glass ceiling.”
“I just wish he would go away,” Steele said to Jesse Watters, the show’s host.
“Almost every time Al Sharpton speaks, I get angry because Al Sharpton pretends that he knows what every single person of color in this country thinks, believes how they should live, how they should act, how they should vote.”
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Sharpton, according to Steele, is the wrong guy to be speaking for anything “right now.”
“Remember Martin Luther King, Mr. Sharpton?” she asked. “I believe you judge me based on the content of my character rather than the color of my skin.” What became of Claudine Gay? There are some personality flaws, which is why she was forced to resign.”
Gay was chastised in the media and by congressional Republicans, most notably Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, for her congressional testimony at an antisemitism hearing on Capitol Hill last month, where she, along with the presidents of MIT and UPenn, failed to adequately condemn antisemitism on their respective campuses.
Gay announced her resignation on Tuesday afternoon, stating that she would return to the Harvard faculty despite widespread plagiarism allegations against her.
“Better late than never, I guess, right?” Steele stated. “And the fact that it chose plagiarism above what occurred with Elise Stefanik is upsetting in and of itself, but when you read the complete message that Harvard gave to its community… They said that she had accepted responsibility for some errors, but what did they do that stuck out the most to me? They were right to condemn the racist attacks that appeared to be targeting Claudine Gay. Any racial attack must be condemned.
“What about Claudine Gay herself, when Elise Stefanik asked her how many times, ‘Is it wrong?'” Do you condemn antisemitic remarks or the genocide of Jewish students on your campus?‘ And she couldn’t even respond. “Clearly, she refused to respond,” she went on.
Steele stated that she “[doesn’t] have much sympathy” for Gay and feels no need to protect her due to her racial color.
“Character to me is so much more concerning,” she went on to say.
Gay’s testimony and alleged plagiarism sparked outrage from donors on both sides of the political aisle, including billionaire Democrats Seth Klarman and Lloyd Blankfein, as well as Republican-backed Harvard alum Kenneth Griffin, who told The New York Times he had given the institution more than $500 million.