Harvard University president Claudine Gay announced Tuesday she is stepping down from leading the prestigious college, following weeks of controversy over campus politics and her own academic record.
“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, 53, wrote in the emotional missive.
“[I]t has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can … focus on the institution rather than any individual,” she explained of the decision.
Calls for Gay’s resignation started in the fall, when she would not condemn over 30 Harvard student groups that published a letter holding Israel “entirely responsible” for Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack.
She then appeared before congress on Dec. 5 where she refused to say that anyone calling for the genocide of Jews at the university would be punished.
In her resignation, Gay cited how she had been subject to racism since the attacks, writing: “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.”
Inaction over antisemitism on campus and Gay’s disastrous appearance before congress led Rabbi David Wolpe, a visiting professor at Harvard divinity school, to quit a panel formed by Gay to advise on antisemitism because there was “no sense of urgency, no sense of anger, no sense of disgust,” at the “urgent crisis” before them.
Despite that, Gay said in her resignation how she’d hoped to represent all and make them feel welcome as president.
“I considered myself particularly blessed by the opportunity to serve people from around the world who saw in my presidency a vision of Harvard that affirmed their sense of belonging—their sense that Harvard welcomes people of talent and promise, from every background imaginable, to learn from and grow with one another. ‘
Political Science professor Gay will now return to a position as a regular faculty member after the six month stint as professor, the shortest in Harvard’s history.
Harvard Provost and Chief Academic Gerber Alan Garber will step in as interim president.
The Harvard Corporation – the university’s highest governing body – also confirmed Gay’s resignation in its own statement, which echoed her own, saying she had “shown remarkable resilience in the face of deeply personal and sustained attacks.
“While some of this has played out in the public domain, much of it has taken the form of repugnant and in some cases racist vitriol directed at her through disgraceful emails and phone calls. We condemn such attacks in the strongest possible terms.”
Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said Gay’s departure was overdue.
“It was the right decision that should have happened sooner. It should not have taken this long. There was a clear lack of leadership. Her resignation was warranted,” he told The Post.
“Jewish students are being verbally attacked.”
Gay, who has been on the Harvard faculty since 2006, apologized a few days after her congressional appearance in an interview with the Crimson, which addressed heightened concerns about Jewish safety at the university.
“I am sorry,” she told the publication. “Words matter.”
Harvard stood behind Gay at that time – including issuing a letter from faculty which called on the administration not to bow to political pressure – but her reputation was then hit by allegations of plagiarism in her academic work.
Just one day before she stepped down, a flurry of six new allegations brought the total accusations against her to nearly 50.
Harvard president Claudine Gay resigns
Here’s how we got here:
- Harvard first faced calls to fire Gay after she stood by the more than 30 Harvard student groups that published a letter claiming they held Israel “entirely responsible” for Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
- Gay faced further calls to step down after disastrous House testimony on antisemitism, in which the embattled president told Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) that calls for genocide against the Jews would only violate Harvard’s rules depending on their “context.”
- Harvard announced Gay would remain president despite the school losing a reported $1 billion in donations.
- Journalists Christopher Rufo and Chris Brunet revealed that the embattled president plagiarized sections of her doctoral thesis, Harvard had previously covered up its own probe and threatened The Post when it looked into plagiarism allegations against Gay.
- Former Professor Carol Swain, whose work Gay is accused of plagiarizing, said Harvard lacks the courage to fire “its first black president.” She added that Gay is “getting a free pass.”
- Billionaire Bill Ackman, a Harvard graduate and donor, claims the school won’t fire her because it would look like it was “kowtowing” to him.
- Four doxxing trucks are parked outside Gay’s home, calling her “the best friend Hamas ever had.”
- The embattled prez was hit with six new plagiarism allegations on Monday, January 1, 2024.
- She was set to step down the following day.
The Post first contacted Harvard on Oct. 24 last year for a comment on 27 allegations that Gay had pilfered words, phrases, or even entire sentences from other academics’ work.
The three works seen by The Post ranged from a 1993 article from Gay’s postgraduate days to 2017, when she was Dean of Social Science at Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Jonathan Swain, the university’s senior executive director of media relations and communications, initially asked for more time to review the accusations, then failed to follow up.
On Oct. 27, The Post received a 15-page letter from high-profile attorney Thomas Clare, who identified himself as the defamation counsel for Harvard and Gay.
Despite being made aware of the allegations months earlier, the university only admitted to its own investigation into Gay’s alleged plagiarism in December, after her appearance before Congress.
“On Dec. 9, the Fellows reviewed the results, which revealed a few instances of inadequate citation,” the statement in support of Gay read.
“While the analysis found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications.”
However, a member of Harvard’s student Honor Council called for Gay’s resignation and accused the school’s governing body of having one standard for the administrator and another for the student body.
“Gay’s getting off easy,” claimed the student, who sits on the council tasked with deciding sanctions for classmates caught plagiarizing, in a letter published anonymously in the Harvard Crimson.
The author went on to say first-time plagiarism infractions — which could be as small as an omitted quotation marks or incomplete or absent citations — typically result in one term of probation and the stripping away of the student’s “good standing” status, which prevents them from studying abroad or even graduating, the author wrote. Repeat offenses can result in students being forced to withdraw from the university for two semesters.
Accusations of plagiarism even continued on Monday in the hours before Gay stepped down, with a claim she lifted nearly half a page of material verbatim from David Canon’s 1999 book “Race Redistricting and Representation: The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts” for her own 2001 article, according to a complaint obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Canon, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, does not agree that Gay’s work constituted plagiarism.
“I am not at all concerned about the passages,” he said in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon. “This isn’t even close to an example of academic plagiarism.”
“Both Dr. Gay and I are defining basic terms such as Section 2 and Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, covered jurisdictions, and bailout. Good definitions of these terms would have to use similar language or they would not be accurate!” Canon said.
Students at the university welcomed Gay stepping down.
“I’m glad to see that Harvard has decided new leadership is needed to begin to pull us out from these many scandals and combat antisemitism on campus,” Harvard student Alex Bernat told The Post Tuesday.
“I’m very hopeful that interim President Garber will do precisely that. Additionally, I think we ought to be conscious about calling for transparency in the investigation into her plagiarism and the manner in which someone with so many academic integrity issues was chosen for the Harvard presidency,” he added.
House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, who questioned Gay during her disastrous appearance before congress, pulled no punches after hearing of the resignation.
“The resignation of Harvard’s antisemitic plagiarist president is long overdue,” Stefanik’s fiery statement read.
“Claudine Gay’s morally bankrupt answers to my questions made history as the most viewed Congressional testimony in the history of the U.S. Congress. Her answers were absolutely pathetic and devoid of the moral leadership and academic integrity required of the President of Harvard,” she insisted.
“Our robust Congressional investigation will continue to move forward to expose the rot in our most “prestigious” higher education institutions and deliver accountability to the American people,” the Republican concluded.
With Post wires
