Harvard's Claudine Gay resignation shows 'final corruption of most elite institutions,' says William Bennett

Fox News correspondent Molly Line breaks down the Harvard president's resignation on 'Special Report.'

FIRST ON FOX — Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned on Tuesday — marking a cataclysmic failure of the leftist orthodoxy that has consumed higher education in recent decades, said two leading academics. 

"What we see here is an example of the final corruption of our most elite institutions," former U.S. Department of Education Secretary William Bennett told Fox News Digital.

The damage to America's oldest, and long its most prestigious university, could have ripple effects on wider society, Bennett also indicated.

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"The American people do not need more discouragement toward the institutions they once looked up to," he said. 

Bennett studied at Harvard Law School and taught at the university — but he is now pessimistic about the institution's ability to refurbish its reputation. 

William Bennett, former education secretary, believes the Claudine Gay scandal at Harvard University could have a damaging ripple effect on wider American society, he told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

"Can Harvard recover? Yes. Will it recover? No. These problems are too ingrained," he said.

Gay was hired in 2022 amid great fanfare as the first Black woman to serve as Harvard president. Yet her resume fell far short of the traditional accomplishments of the position, critics assert.

The Ivy League school's newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, indicated that Gay's resignation will bring an end to the shortest Harvard presidency in the university's history. 

"Can Harvard recover? Yes. Will it recover? No.