Harvard University President Claudine Gay, who last year became the first Black leader in the school’s 386-year history, faced fierce criticism from House lawmakers on Tuesday during an intense hearing to address growing anti-Semitism on some U.S. college campuses amid the Israel-Hamas war.
The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also faced a thorough grilling from members of the House Education Committee, but it was Gay who appeared to be the primary target of Republicans who sought to slam her leadership after less than six months on the job.
During the roughshod questioning, led by Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, Gay repeatedly denounced anti-Semitism, but she acknowledged that Harvard had “not always gotten it right” in confronting racial and cultural issues that have emerged since she joined the university as a professor in 2006.
“This is difficult work, and I admit that we have not always gotten it right,” Gay said. “As Harvard’s president, I am personally responsible for confronting anti-Semitism with the urgency it demands.”
Stefanik, also a Harvard alum, was Gay’s most vocal critic during the proceedings, calling for her resignation as she and other House Republicans pressed the educator for clarity on her stance regarding Israel’s sovereignty and whether some students on the Harvard campus had violated the code of conduct by openly calling for “intifada” — or an uprising against Israeli occupation in Gaza — during recent protests.
“It is at odds with the values of Harvard,” Gay said. “We embrace a commitment to free expression, even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful.”
While Gay faced blistering questions, her peers, including MIT President Sally Kornbluth, Penn President Liz Magill, and American University professor Pamela Nadell — all of whom are white—faced few, if any, pointed questions from the panel.
During…
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