Claudine Gay, Harvard University’s first Black president, resigned Tuesday amid accusations of plagiarism and a major backlash that emerged in recent months over her failure to address anti-Semitism on campus — marking the shortest tenure for any leader in the school’s 386-year history.
Gay released a statement, announcing she would step down as president and return to the faculty just six months after assuming the top role at the nation’s premier Ivy League college on July 1.
“It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president,” Gay wrote, adding that it had “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 explained.
In her resignation, Gay revealed that she faced racial discrimination since the anti-Semitism controversy first erupted in early October amid the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
“It has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus,” the 53-year-old educator said.
For the past month, Gay has faced intense pressure to resign following a disastrous congressional hearing in which lawmakers excoriated her and other college administrators for being too soft on anti-Semitic viewpoints on their respective campuses.
As the controversy swelled, separate and unrelated accusations arose of suspected plagiarism by Gay in her Ph.D. dissertation after conservative watchdogs found instances where the lifelong scholar copied works without quoting, citing, or attributing phrases to original authors.
The allegations prompted The Harvard Corporation — the college’s governing board —…
Read the full article here
