Harvard University’s first Black president, Claudine Gay, said she stepped down Tuesday to stop critics from using her to taint the Ivy League school’s reputation as she faced racist and death threats.
Gay’s move marks the shortest presidential tenure in the institution’s history as she stepped down after six months. It comes after plagiarism allegations and pushback over her testimony at a congressional hearing on how anti-Semitism was handled on college campuses.
“For weeks, both I and the institution to which I’ve devoted my professional life have been under attack. My character and intelligence have been impugned,” she wrote in a New York Times op-ed. “My commitment to fighting antisemitism 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.”
On Tuesday, Gay explained that after a meeting with the Harvard Corporation, it “is in the best interests” to resign from her position at the prestigious university. Gay also mentioned that she was subjected to racial attacks.
At the congressional hearing, lawmakers pressed and accused Gay of not enforcing the student code of conduct amid demonstrations in support of Palestinians in Gaza in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.
She also came under scrutiny from conservative watchdogs who alleged that she plagiarized her academic work, prompting an investigation from the school governing board. The probe concluded that there were no violations, only “a few instances of inadequate citation.” Despite this, the allegations continued to pile up.
“My hope is that by stepping down, I will deny demagogues the opportunity to further weaponize my presidency in their campaign to undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding,” Gay wrote on Wednesday.
Although she acknowledged that she made a mistake by not being more aggressive in her response to…
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