Hmmmmm……. a few points generally
The track that takes academics from intellectual production to administration is not for everyone. It rarely calls people who are famous for being clever. They’d have other skills like managers. The analog in engineering may be that project leads or managers aren’t always the bright sparks inventing and working through the problems but rather those best at negotiating funding , coordinating parts, playing bureaucratic footsie and getting ahead through organisational politics….cf. Silicon Valley, the agglomeration and the tv show. Musk, Gates, Jobs aren’t actual engineering geniuses. It isn’t clear why there’s an expectation that Gay should be a ground-breaking scholar.
Gay hasn’t criticized Israel. It would be strange that an office like theirs did. We are all looking at this subject through the kaleidoscope of a congressional hearing and partisan gamesmanship. Stepanik and the media know that the universities wouldn’t tolerate any threats against Jewish students. The presidents’ fumbling is related to their attempts to navigate the free speech precedents entailed in making declaration. Universities want to retain the right to govern when to suppress and when to permit offensive speech.
