Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned from her position as president Tuesday, Jan. 2. Gay announced her resignation after facing scrutiny over her testimony during a congressional hearing regarding antisemitism on college campuses and allegations of plagiarism in her academic work that followed the hearing.
“My character and intelligence have been impugned. My commitment to fighting anti-semitism has been questioned. My inbox has been flooded with invective, including death threats. I’ve been called the N-word more times than I care to count,” Gay wrote in a guest column for the New York Times published Jan. 3.
Gay was president for six months, making it the shortest tenure in Harvard’s 388-year history, according to the Harvard Crimson newspaper. She was the first Black person and the second woman to be president of the school.
Criticism and calls for Gay’s resignation followed the Dec. 5 congressional hearing, which included Gay, Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, and Sally Kornbluth, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The three presidents were there to speak about how the institutions were handling antisemitic incidents on their campuses following the war in Palestine between Hamas and Israel. During the meeting, many Republican lawmakers insisted the schools were not doing enough to root out and denounce anti-Jewish rhetoric.
Gay and her counterparts were heavily criticized during questioning from House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY). Stefanik asked Gay if students who call for the genocide of Jewish people violate the campus code of conduct.
“We embrace a commitment to free expression even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful — it’s when that speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies against bullying, harassment, intimidation,” Gay responded.
In the days that followed, Gay’s response was met with criticism from the White House, Republican and Democratic lawmakers, and high-profile Harvard alumni, according to NBC news.
Magill resigned from her role as president of the University of Pennsylvania, but in the wake of growing calls for her resignation, Harvard seemed at first to stand by Gay. In a statement released Dec. 12, the Harvard Corporation said its members “reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University.” However, disapproval of Gay only continued throughout December.
Criticism increased with allegations of plagiarism in Gay’s published work. The Harvard Corporation ordered an investigation that “revealed a few instances of inadequate citation” but found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research and misconduct.
Gay’s resignation has been met both with support and outcry.
As a first-generation college student, Pennie M. Gregory considered her admittance to Harvard’s Doctor of Education Leadership (EdLD) program an “extraordinary opportunity.” She said that attending Harvard while the first Black woman president in the school’s history was inaugurated was mind-blowing.
“I thought about how her presidency would impact my experience as a woman of color at Harvard. I looked forward to supporting her endeavors and witnessing her leadership firsthand. Of all of the years I could have been a student at Harvard, it felt serendipitous that I would be here at this exact moment in time,” Gregory said in a statement to the Recorder.
For Gregory, Congress’ investigation of Gay’s handling of antisemitism on campus was questionable, and the “quick and seemingly deliberate pivot from questioning her leadership to attacking her credentials” made her unsure if this meeting was about the protection of Jewish students or the opportunity for something else.
Gregory pointed out that even in the case of Magill’s resignation from the University of Pennsylvania, her qualifications, academic work and integrity were not questioned.
“Harvard was not ready for a president to look different from the previous 29 Presidents. I am reminded of Malcolm X’s speech delivered in May of 1966 in Los Angeles, California, where he said, ‘The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman,’” Gregory said.
While Gregory is disappointed in the situation surrounding Gay’s resignation, she knows the story does not and cannot end here.
“As I depart, I must offer a few words of warning. The campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader. This was merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society,” Gay wrote in the New York Times.
Contact Racial Justice Reporter, Garrett Simms, at 317-762-7847
![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://indianapolisrecorder.com/harvard-university-president-claudine-gay-resigned/&media=https://indianapolisrecorder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/gettyimages-1833207451-612x612-1.jpg&description="My character and intelligence have been impugned. My commitment to fighting anti-semitism has been questioned){kind=link}