Claudine Gay, Harvard's first Black president, will go down as the shortest-serving. Six months after taking the helm of the prestigious East Coast university, the Haitian-born academic announced her resignation on Tuesday, January 2, 2024, after coming under fire on two fronts: her handling of divisions on campus over the war between Israel and Hamas and accusations of plagiarism in her doctoral thesis, opportunely brought to light by the conservative media.
After being criticized nationwide for the formality of her answers at a December 5, congressional hearing on anti-Semitism in universities, Gay received the support of Harvard's African-American faculty and students. If she thought she was off the hook, she was in for a rude awakening. On Tuesday, new revelations came to light about the plagiarism she allegedly engaged in when writing her doctoral thesis in 1997. The allegations were deemed credible by the Harvard Crimson student newspaper. The Crimson nonetheless called on Gay to remain in office, believing that the reproductions were the result of negligence rather than malice.
In her letter of resignation, Gay, 53, a political scientist specializing in issues of race and identity, expressed her "distress" at having been challenged on both her commitment to "confronting hate" at Harvard and her concern for scientific rigor: "Two bedrock values," she wrote, to which she is attached. She also qualified the personal attacks and threats made against her as "frightening", and said they "fueled by racial animus". "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." she wrote.
In the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Gay was criticized for not having reacted with sufficient vigor to defend Israel and condemn the pro-Palestinian student positions that seemed to justify the attack. At the House of Representatives hearing on "campus anti-Semitism," she was pushed around by New York Republican Representative Elise Stefanik, who asked her to condemn "calls for genocide" against Israel. Instead of replying that the term "intifada" was not an incitement to genocide, nor was the slogan "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," Gay got tangled up in arguments about freedom of expression.
When asked by Stefanik whether "calling for the genocide of the Jews violates Harvard's harassment policy, yes or no?" she gave an answer that went viral: "It can, depending on the context," before adding "if it's directed against a person." The answer, propagated on social media, drew condemnation that reverberated all the way to the White House. Influential conservatives such as billionaire Bill Ackman, who has donated millions of dollars to Harvard, called for her resignation.
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