CNN guest makes host regret playing race card to defend former Harvard president: 'No one to blame but herself'

Coleman Hughes is refusing to buy the left's narrative about the ouster of now-former Harvard president Claudine Gay.

After Gay's resignation on Tuesday, progressives claimed Gay had become the victim of a racially motivated campaign against her. The narrative argues that conservatives targeted Gay because she is black and a proponent of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

On CNN, network anchor Abby Phillip tried to bait Hughes into giving legitimacy to the argument.

"Don't [you] think there was anything about this that had to do with the fact that she was a black woman from the people who were claiming this as a victory against DEI?" Phillip asked.

"I don't think it did. And, you know what? Even if it did, that doesn't justify [the plagiarism]. If you or I did this, or even any white scholar, it would be career-ending to have 50 examples of plagiarism," Hughes fired back. "And it has to be because: How can you be the one upholding Harvard's integrity when you yourself have failed? It's as if the commissioner of the Major League Baseball or the NBA had a lifelong history of steroid use and was now the person in charge of kicking other people out for steroid use.

"It's completely untenable," he explained.

Throughout the interview, Phillip and guest Mussab Ali repeatedly defended and excused Gay's behavior, suggesting she was the victim of an unfair process in which her race played a role or that her plagiarism wasn't serious. But Hughes remained strong in the face of their excuses.

"Students get expelled for this," Hughes argued, later saying, "This is a pattern of serious fraud that would destroy the career of any journalists, any author."

Gay, according to Hughes, "has no one to blame but herself in this situation."

"If you're the president of a university, that means you're in charge of policing plagiarism among students. Every year, some Harvard students get disciplined for plagiarism. You cannot yourself be trailing a history of almost 50 credible allegations of plagiarism," he explained.

"She took the easy way out by plagiarizing over and over again rather than the hard way of constructing your own original prose," he added.

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