In response to mounting criticism of Harvard University’s handling of rising antisemitism and accusations of plagiarism, Claudine Gay has resigned as president of the university on Tuesday, January 2.
She was Harvard’s first Black president, and was one of three presidents of American universities called before congress to answer instances of rising antisemitism on campuses. During the hearings, President Gay condemned “antisemitism and hate speech” but faced criticism for a hedging when asked if “calling for genocide of Jews” violated Harvard’s anti-bullying rules. She later clarified her comments on X, saying: “Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account.”
In the wake of the congressional hearing, conservative activists examined Gay’s academic past and found evidence that she had allegedly plagiarized parts of her 1997 doctoral thesis. The university investigated and found further areas of “duplicative language without appropriate attribution” but attributed it to a simple failure of “inadequate citation” that will be updated.
Gay is now the second university president to resign after the congressional hearings, following University of Pennsylvania’s M. Elizabeth Magill, who resigned four days afterwards.
