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If you’re a person of color, it’s hard not to feel the pain of Claudine Gay.

As an Asian American alumnus of Harvard, it hurts even more.

Being a BIPOC person with a Harvard degree has always made you a target. The racist assumptions never fade. Why are you here? Because of your race? Your gender? Surely, it’s not your talent or qualifications.

And if you’re a “first” in your position among whites, as Gay was Harvard’s first African American president, and only the second female, you might already feel like an imposter. You muster up a sense of resilience, only to be constantly beaten up by political bullies who question your very existence.

That’s the real shame about the saga of the fallen ex-Harvard president.

Consider that the most damning comments during the Gay saga came from rabid fans of the twice-impeached, four-time criminally indicted man who wants to be a president again. That would be Donald Trump.

One of the league of Trump lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, a former Harvard Law professor, was one of those on cable TV leading the chorus calling Gay a DEI hire.

For the uninitiated, DEI is “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the established catchall phrase for race matters in the academic and corporate worlds. It is the new focus of the second coming of the affirmative action battle, which despite the SCOTUS ruling last year isn’t quite dead enough for some. But then, the anti-civil rights folks never give up trying to straighten the bending arc of justice. And so right-wing opponents of DEI saw Gay, beginning with her less than fiery congressional hearing comments, as a gift to their cause.

Gay was a pushover for attack dogs like Dershowitz, who demonized her not for her milquetoast “depends on the context” comments, but for what she stood for–DEI.

“That’s how she became president,” Dershowitz commented one night on cable. “She is the symbol of DEI and the symbol has failed.”

And what of the moral failings of Trump, the man DEI attackers love? They bash Gay and embrace Trump, the man who was so unqualified to lead the United States as president, who had never held public office, who lied or misled in his public statements thousands of times that he made presidential fact-checking a cottage industry. Now he’s under criminal indictment on 90-plus felony counts, and the prohibitive favorite to be the Republican nominee for president.

The only way it can be understood is that he is the extreme beneficiary of white affirmative action.

And what of the thousands of lies Trump has made? His defenders will say at least it’s not plagiarism, which is, after all, a common practice among politicians and corporate execs who have ghostwriters and speechwriters. Saying others’ words and passing them off as your own? In the real world of politics, it’s standard operating procedure. Trump elevated that. He didn’t read his scripts after a while. He just went rogue and told bald-faced lies.

The plagiarism Gay was accused of was determined by Harvard to be minor and not a violation of research misconduct. She was not an outright liar like Trump. She was allowed to make some minor corrections. Still, her right-wing critics made it the moral cause for her demise. They allow for the lies of the Republican front-runner and Gay is a president no more? There’s your damning double standard.

Sometimes a simple math concept like substitution is instructive in these matters.

If Claudine Gay were a white man, would she had been made a target?

If Donald Trump, or any other white man, had answered the same way as Gay at that “fake” congressional hearing (that was really all about getting campaign video rather than finding the truth), would the white man have been pilloried?

Of the three university presidents who were called to testify before Congress, all three were women. Magill of Penn resigned, but Kornbluth of MIT has hung on with MIT’s support.

Gay, however, was more vulnerable. Not just a woman, but a black woman. And that led to increased scrutiny of her work and scholarship, essentially “oppo research” to fuel even more attacks on Gay’s qualifications. That’s what you do to a BIPOC person. You doubt them to death. Remember Trump the birther on Obama?

Critics didn’t even attack the two white female college presidents on their previous scholarship. And they wouldn’t have attacked a white male on credentials. Not even if he didn’t have any, witness Trump. They gave whites a pass and dumped on Gay, the perfect Harvard president for the anti-DEI crowd.

Instead of supporting her, Harvard buckled. It’s a bad precedent for DEI’s future. Harvard buckled? Then certainly XXX State University can feel free to dump DEI.

That’s the sad thing. Harvard, as a private institution with its large $60 billion endowment, should have set an example for higher ed and stood by its president.

Harvard could have refused her letter of resignation on Monday, which came even as more allegations of plagiarism were surfacing. The number was rising to nearly fifty examples (many minor) that were turned in by an anonymous source to conservative media. Apparently, it was too much for Gay to stand her ground and fight on.

But Harvard, the institution, could have and it didn’t.

Gay clearly was not “perfect” enough for Harvard, and the school caved to the pressure. Or just didn’t like all the negative publicity.

In Gay, Harvard had a qualified African American academic leader who was the right person to lead the school’s transformation as it tries to undo its racist past–where slaveholders and colonizers have names on buildings and/or are honored as heroes.

It should have stuck with Gay beyond a mere six months.

But real-world politics trumped the norm of even the most treacherous academic office politics.

As Gay wrote in her letter to alumni: “After consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.”

"After consultation"? That's one way to soften a shove out the door.

The anti-DEI charges hurled by billionaire right-wing alumni donors like Bill Ackman and Trump supporters that bullied Gay personally and individually were enough to topple Harvard.

The Harvard Corporation, made up of more former or current hedge fund runners and more corporatists than is good for a higher ed institution, simply let Gay resign.There doesn’t appear to be any resistance or fight.

What does that say about Harvard’s dedication to diversity, equity and inclusion? For the right people, maybe?

The sense we’re left with is Gay was not to be Harvard’s DEI hill to die on.

Not white enough? Not corporate enough? Harvard’s own letter to the community began “With great sadness…” and was more PR than real.

As an alumnus, I got both emails within minutes. And as a person of color, I immediately felt what Gay must have felt.

Where was the support? Who had Gay’s back? Not the university.

The entire situation says a lot about Harvard’s commitment to DEI. They’ll back you. Just don’t hurt the brand.

Harvard wouldn’t fight the bullying of Claudine Gay, and then chose not to do the right thing. It took the easy way out, protected the institution, and let Gay slip into the darkness.

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NOTE: I will talk about this column and other matters on “Emil Amok’s Takeout,” my AAPI micro-talk show. Live @2p Pacific. Livestream on Facebook; my YouTube channel; and Twitter. Catch the recordings on www.amok.com.