Commentary

Commentary: Harvard’s First Black Female President Survives New Anti-Diversity Battle

If you haven’t realized it yet, that congressional hearing last week that continues to make news wasn’t about solving antisemitism in America in the shadow of the Israel/Hamas war. That was the given pretext for the hearing, but it really served as a platform for an outright attack by right-wing MAGA-types on the thing they believe has destroyed higher education – and all of society—in the last 30 years. What would that be? Diversity, of course, and the undoing of racial discrimination in the spirit of the Civil Rights Act.

Published

3 years ago

December 15, 2023

Oakland Post

Harvard President Claudine Gay. Courtesy of Harvard Gazette.

By Emil Guillermo

If you haven’t realized it yet, that congressional hearing last week that continues to make news wasn’t about solving antisemitism in America in the shadow of the Israel/Hamas war.

That was the given pretext for the hearing, but it really served as a platform for an outright attack by right-wing MAGA-types on the thing they believe has destroyed higher education – and all of society—in the last 30 years.

What would that be?

Diversity, of course, and the undoing of racial discrimination in the spirit of the Civil Rights Act.

With that single word, “diversity,” comes all that detractors believe has crippled our country starting with our colleges and universities.

It includes everything from admissions, to hiring, and extends to a curriculum that has seen the emergence of race, gender, and equity studies. It serves to make everyone more aware of issues heretofore ignored in society in general.

What better way to bring about its reversal but in a high-profile congressional hearing attacking three elite university presidents?

The main instigator was fourth ranking Republican, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, a Donald Trump acolyte, and herself an Ivy League-educated Marjorie Taylor Green wannabe.

Stefanik is a Trump enabler who voted to invalidate the 2020 election and has maintained the “Big Lie” on election fraud.

That puts her low on any sane person’s credibility scale –unless you’re Donald Trump.

At the hearing, Stefanik in mini-authoritarian mode, was given extra time by fellow Republicans who yielded to her so she could wail at the college presidents demanding they give yes/no answers on complex matters of free speech and discrimination.

It was textbook political outrage as performance and a good example of why politics is sometimes called “show business for ugly people.”

Still, it’s hard to believe that elite college presidents, who themselves oversee sometimes treacherous academic office politics, could have been taken by surprise. Surely, they’ve seen Congressional hearings run by MAGA loyalists like Jim Jordan (R.-Ohio)?

But when Penn’s Elizabeth Magill, Harvard’s Claudine Gay, and MIT’s Sally Kornbluth came to Congress they just didn’t seem to have a clue they were being teed up by the conservative right.

They thought it was a serious inquiry into antisemitism and responded as such. They were going for nuance and were reserved when asked if calls for genocide against Jews harassment under university policy?

Yes, or no?

The presidents didn’t want to respond to hypotheticals. They said it depends on the context.

And that’s when they were bullied, harangued and soundbited.

How many people were surprised to see a Black woman among the three? That would be Claudine Gay, African American Studies scholar, and the first African American to be president of Harvard.

But she really stood for all of us.

Despite more than five hours of hearings, most people only saw the micro-clips showing the three presidents respond in a collegial, legalistic way. They were soft-spoken and reasonable, respectful of the inquiry. They did not match the volume, ire, and fake passion of Stefanik.

Good enough in a fair fight. But this was not that. The presidents failed to understand that hearings exist for members of Congress to demagogue, beat up on their invited guests, all while the cameras roll, creating viral clips for their own re-election campaigns.

Stefanik got the newsclips she wanted on every major network. But it opened an old wound about America’s reckoning on race. It made everyone question it.

Over the weekend, the key takeaway wasn’t that rising anti-Semitism was bad in society or on campus. Indeed, one major cable network suggested the hearings showed why the public has lost faith in higher ed, claiming it has become home of dogmatic ideology and social engineering, not academic merit.

A fellow committee member Mark Takano (D-Calif.) could see through it. He told the Harvard Crimson the Republicans “were not really interested in the topic of antisemitism and antisemitism on campus.” Rather, Takano, thought the Republicans were playing divisive MAGA-politics.

“My own sense is that the Republicans are spring-loaded to enact a narrative that universities are bastions of liberal progressives,” Takano told the college newspaper. “They wanted to present an opportunity for their members to portray universities in a certain way.”

He was also critical of Stefanik whom he observed as taking a “hard turn to the right.”

But Stefanik’s stunt appears to be working.

While MIT President Sally Kornbluth has received some support on her campus, Penn’s President Magill was forced to resign over the weekend.

Harvard’s Gay apologized for her performance on Friday but was still under some pressure to resign. To counter, faculty members circulated a letter of support on Sunday. But there’s also been some public discussion questioning whether as an African America woman Gay was even qualified for the job.

Some conservative outlets going into her scholarly work exposed minor examples of plagiarism, anathema. On Tuesday Harvard’s board voted to “unanimously stand in support of President Gay.”

All this from an inquiry into fighting antisemitism. Instead, the hearing exposed the bitterness and resentment that some still have over a move toward diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). It is a staple MAGA argument.

Stefanik’s stunt worked so well, expect more of it.

Yes, we’re all against antisemitism. But as we see, in 2023, some people hate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, even more.

Emil Guillermo is a veteran Northern California journalist and commentator. He does a micro-talk show on YouTube.com/@emilamok1

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Activism

Diabetes in Black California: Turning the Tide from Crisis to Control

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, nearly 17.9% of Black adults in California have been diagnosed with diabetes — above the national Black adult average of 16.8%, and nearly five points higher than California’s overall adult rate of 12.6% across all races. California ranks 24th out of 39 states with available data for Black adult diabetes rates.

Published

1 day ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

Dr. Khadijah Lang is a family physician with a clinic in Los Angeles who specializes in several family medical practices, including prenatal care. Lang believes in family medicine. She says it is important to treat all members of a family. Thursday, June 5, 2026. Photo by Solomon O. Smith/California Black Media.

By Charlene Muhammad, California Black Media

Crystal Lambert knew something was terribly wrong with her three-year-old granddaughter as she sped down the street trying to get her to the hospital.

“I thought she got a hold of some poison,” Lambert recalled.

Doctors found Lambert’s granddaughter had a blood sugar level over 800, diagnosing her with Diabetic Ketoacidosis(DKA), a state in which the body, starved of insulin, begins to shut down.

Lambert said she was born with a pancreas that was not fully functioning — it lacked the specialized cells required to produce insulin.

Her granddaughter survived and is five years old today. Now, she gives herself insulin shots, asks endless questions about her condition, and runs like the spirited child she is. But the terror of that night transformed Lambert — and ultimately inspired her to launch the We Fight Back Organization, a mobile health and food access initiative serving underserved communities across California. Lambert is the executive director.

The Crisis by the Numbers

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, nearly 17.9% of Black adults in California have been diagnosed with diabetes — above the national Black adult average of 16.8%, and nearly five points higher than California’s overall adult rate of 12.6% across all races. California ranks 24th out of 39 states with available data for Black adult diabetes rates.

Nationally, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Black Americans were 24% more likely than the overall U.S. population to have diabetes in 2024. They also died from diabetes 78% more often than the general population in 2022. Black Americans are also more than twice as likely as the overall population to develop kidney failure caused by diabetes.

According to the California Health Care Foundation’s 2024 Health Disparities Almanac, Black Californians have the shortest life expectancy in the state at just 74.6 years — due in part to chronic conditions like diabetes and its devastating complications.

Leon Rock, co-founder of the African American Diabetes Association, believes statistics, though revealing, only tell part of the story.

“There are a whole bunch of Black folks that don’t tell you that they have diabetes — or don’t know,” he said.

And the disease itself, Rock is careful to note, is not what kills. “They die from the complications. That’s heart attack, that’s stroke, that’s amputations of legs, of feet. Going blind. All those complications are inherent in a system that has impacted Black folks with diabetes in California and across America.”

Crystal Lambert, creator and executive director of We Fight Back. She started the organization out of a need to learn more about diabetes on behalf of her granddaughter. Now she is looking to spread the impact of her organization to the valley. Friday, June 6, 2026. Photo by Solomon O. Smith/California Black Media.

Crystal Lambert, creator and executive director of the We Fight Back Organization, started out of a need to learn more about diabetes on behalf of her granddaughter. Now she is looking to spread her organization to the valley, on Friday, June 6, 2026 Photo by Solomon O. Smith/ California Black Media

An Information Gap Fuels the Crisis

For Rock, part of the solution is diagnosis. He says the medical and public health systems are failing Black Californians by the absence of information designed for them.

“That is the bottom line. We need good information. Information that is culturally specific,” said Rock.

Telling people to eat healthy or exercise, he added, falls short when culturally specific alternatives are not provided, and when many residents of urban communities do not feel safe exercising in some neighborhoods – or outside at night.

Dr. Khadijah Lang, a family medicine physician and president of the Golden State Medical Association, agrees that the roots of the crisis run deeper than individual behavior — and blaming patients misses the point.

“We are not genetically predisposed to diabetes,” Lang said. “But the system under which we live increases the likelihood that we will develop it.”

What the Body Needs — What Communities Are Denied

Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for 90 to 95% of all diabetes cases, according to the CDC, develops when the body can no longer use insulin effectively to regulate blood sugar. Left unmanaged, it damages nerves, kidneys, eyes, and the cardiovascular system. The hemoglobin A1C test is a blood draw that reveals how the body has processed sugar over the previous three months — not just at the moment of the test. It is the standard tool for both diagnosis and ongoing monitoring.

That distinction matters, Lang emphasized, because patients cannot manipulate three months of blood sugar history the way they might fast for a day before a single blood draw.

“The pill is not meant to undo or control a sugar level that’s being constantly stressed,” Lang said. “It’s meant to work in conjunction with a low-carbohydrate diet and exercise.” She recommended at minimum 30 minutes of physical activity five days a week — breakable into 10-minute sessions for those who need it.

Lang stressed that education must be delivered in language people recognize and can relate to. The goal is to inform them of the choices that serve their health best, she said.

But for many Black Californians, even those informed choices remain out of reach, Lambert said.

“They need access to healthy foods and medication, too” she said.

California has made some critical policy advances. The state has expanded access to the Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM), which has transformed diabetes care for state residents. Assembly Bill 365, introduced in 2024, proposed requiring Medi-Cal to cover the costs of CGM and other related medical equipment but it failed in the State Senate. Since then, the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) reports that the core Medi-Cal CGM benefit now available to eligible patients was solidified through previous budget actions and pharmacy policy updates.

These measures, while meaningful, have not closed the gap for the communities most at risk, according to advocates.

Control Through Community

Health care advocates conclude that the solution must be communal, culturally grounded, and sustained — not a fad, not a celebrity moment, not a single clinic visit. For example, observed Lang, lifestyle shaped by shared values and collective accountability can move the needle where individual prescriptions have not.

Rock is building infrastructure to match the urgency, establishing local chapters of the African American Diabetes Association across the country, with California next.

“We have to do for self, period,” he said. “Health is wealth. We have to eat to live.”

And Lambert, whose granddaughter unknowingly started all of this for her, keeps showing up.

“Diabetes advocacy is about dignity, education, prevention, and hope,” she said.

Video: Diabetes Disparity Exposed in California

This article is supported by the California Health Care Foundation

(CHCF). Visit www.chcf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

1 day ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

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Arts and Culture

Prescott Circus Theatre Presents Free Summer Performance Series

Now in its 41st year, the Prescott Circus Theatre is a nationally recognized performing arts education program for Oakland youth. The circus offers safe environments that challenge Oakland youth, through circus arts training, to develop the skills and confidence to thrive on stage, in school, and in life.

Published

1 week ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Prescott Circus showcase pathways pyramid. Photo courtesy of Prescott Circus.

By Post Staff

The Prescott Circus, Oakland’s longest-running youth circus, is returning this summer with its free shows. Join the Prescott Circus’s young stars as they share their joys and talents through stilt-dancing, tumbling, juggling, and more.

At the heart of this one-hour show, which demonstrates teamwork, pride, and joy, are Oakland Unified School District students ages 8 – 17 from more than 10 different schools

This is accomplished through no-cost school and community programs for more than 300 Oakland youth each year. Performing company members from Prescott, where the program began, perform and make appearances at as many as 40 Bay Area events each year.

The summer program is funded in part by Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, California Arts Council, Port of Oakland, and the West Davis & Bergard Foundation.

Performances will be held Tuesday, July 14, 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (ASL interpreted) and Wednesday, July 15, 11 a.m., at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. For free reservations go to

https://PrescottCircusSummerShows.eventbrite.com

For group reservations for camps, childcare centers, senior centers, go to www.prescottcircus.org

A community show will be held Saturday, July 18, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., at DeFremery Park,1651 Adeline St., Oakland.