Harvard President Resigns Amid Criticism for Inadequate Response to Antisemitism on Campus

Claudine Gay, the President of Harvard University, announced her resignation on Tuesday, December 12, following allegations of plagiarism. She had previously faced criticism for her testimony at a congressional hearing where she failed to clearly state that calls for the genocide of Jews on campus violated the university's ethical policies. Ms. Gay, the second female and first Black president of Harvard, resigns just months after taking office. She had been under pressure for weeks following the outbreak of conflict between Israel and Hamas, and her initial responses to Hamas's attacks and the rise of antisemitism on campus were controversial. During a House committee hearing on the matter in early December, she gave an ambiguous answer to whether calls for the genocide of Jews violated the university's ethical standards, which sparked widespread criticism. She stated that whether this constitutes harassment depends on the context. After the congressional hearing, conservative activists scrutinized the Harvard president's academic career and discovered several alleged instances of plagiarism in her 1997 doctoral dissertation. The Harvard Board of Trustees initially supported Ms. Gay, stating that a review of her academic work only revealed a few instances of 'insufficient citation' but found no evidence of ethical violations in her research. A few days later, the Harvard Corporation, the university's governing board, revealed that two additional instances of 'repeated phrases without proper citation' had been found, and the board stated that she would update and revise her dissertation. Harvard's administration praised Ms. Gay's resilience in the face of 'deeply personal' attacks and strongly condemned the hate and racist attacks she received via email and phone. The Harvard Board of Trustees announced that Alan M. Garber, an economist and physician who held a senior administrative position at the university, would serve as interim president until Harvard finds a permanent replacement.