The Associated Press (AP) back-peddled some of its language in reporting Claudine Gay’s resignation as president of Harvard Jan. 2 after facing criticism on Twitter for its coverage of the incident.
The article initially focused on Christopher Rufo, a Hillsdale College fellow and Manhattan Institute senior fellow who cheered Gay’s resignation on Twitter by posting a tweet saying, “SCALPED: Harvard president Claudine Gay resigns.” The AP claimed Rufo’s post suggested Gay is “a trophy of violence,” and wrote that scalping was “a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans.”
The updated article now keeps the sentence intact, but adds the afterthought that scalping was “also used by some tribes against their enemies.”
SCAPLED: Harvard president Claudine Gay resigns. pic.twitter.com/Pnh0Gth0AS
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 2, 2024
Rufo went on a victory lap on Twitter after The AP qualified its article to say that scalping has been practiced across multiple cultures in history, mocking the outlet in a follow-up post about the article’s attempt to cover up vilifying white colonists.
WINNING: After mass ridicule on X, the AP has stealth-edited its story to note that Native Americans were big-time scalpers in the colonial era. pic.twitter.com/xBssrSeo6r
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 3, 2024
Gay came under fire after defending Harvard’s anti-Semitic student protests as an exercise of free speech, which led to a renewed scrutiny of her academic record and multiple allegations of plagiarism. (RELATED: ‘Could Not Stand A Black Woman In Authority’: Liberals Melt Down As Harvard President Announces Resignation)
“Gay was not qualified, they made a bad decision in hiring her, and their commitment to race over merit has been a disaster,” Rufo later posted on Twitter.