The board’s secretive approach and opacity has made even those who earlier rallied around Dr. Gay uncomfortable. That is in part because the corporation did not disclose that it had been quietly investigating Dr. Gay’s academic work since October, when it was first contacted by a New York Post reporter about plagiarism allegations against her.

Faculty and donors say the board members, by declining to be more open, have left important questions hanging over the school and Dr. Gay. Among the most persistent: Why didn’t they disclose the investigation earlier, and when, exactly, did the corporation — and Harvard’s top administrators — first hear of the plagiarism allegations against Dr. Gay? How did a small group of conservative activists seem to know more about Dr. Gay’s scholarship than the governing body responsible for vetting her selection? …

Ms. Palandjian told the dinner group, leaders of a Harvard council on academic freedom, that replacing the university’s president might not be going far enough to get Harvard back on course. Harvard required “generational change,” she said.

[Harvard Corporation thought they were making ‘generational change’ when they appointed Gay as Harvard’s president. And they did — but it was a generational change to identity over competency and virtue. I somehow doubt that the board members want a generational change back to real academic values. They just want a less embarrassing example of identitarianism. — Ed]