NYT’s, MSNBC’s Goldberg: Congressional Testimony of Harvard, MIT, Penn Presidents Looks ‘Smart in Retrospect’ 

On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Alex Wagner Tonight,” New York Times columnist and MSNBC Contributor Michelle Goldberg stated that MIT President Sally Kornbluth, former Harvard President Claudine Gay, and former Penn President Elizabeth Magill gave the answers they did before Congress because they “didn’t want to commit to cracking down on student protesters, and I think that that decision looks pretty smart in retrospect.”

Goldberg stated that she’s heard that Columbia President Minouche Shafik’s congressional testimony “threw fire on a volatile situation, by just making it so clear that the administration had kind of no sympathy for the demands of protesters, the fact that the administration threw several members of their faculty under the bus, revealed what should have been confidential disciplinary proceedings, sometimes disciplinary complaints that were unknown to the professors themselves. And I also think that, in retrospect, this makes — a lot of people were really appalled by the performance of Claudine Gay, and…Magill, the Presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT. But this is exactly what they were trying to avoid, when they refused to commit to saying that the chant from the river to the sea is genocidal, that it violates their school’s policies, they didn’t want to commit to cracking down on student protesters, and I think that that decision looks pretty smart in retrospect.”

She added that no school would let their buildings be occupied forever, but Columbia moved very quickly after Hamilton Hall was taken over.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett