In the end, Barack Obama, Penny Pritzker, 700-some members of the faculty, the mighty voice of the Harvard Crimson and the entire nomenclature of the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion movement could not save her from herself. Claudine Gay resigned as president of Harvard University after a month of relentless criticism.

In principle, her feckless performance on 5 December before the House of Representatives’ committee on education and the workforce should have been sufficient to persuade Harvard’s board (which aristocratically calls itself the Harvard Corporation) to cut her loose. But