Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned Tuesday amid plagiarism accusations and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say unequivocally that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.
Gay announced her departure, which came just months into her tenure, in a letter to the Harvard community.
She and the presidents of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania came under fire last month for their lawyerly answers to a line of questioning from New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, who asked whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate the colleges’ code of conduct. The three presidents had been called before the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce to answer accusations that universities were failing to protect Jewish students amid rising fears of antisemitism worldwide and fallout from Israel’s intensifying war in Gaza, which faces heightened criticism for the mounting Palestinian death toll.
Gay said it depended on the context, adding that when “speech crosses into conduct, that violates our policies.” The answer faced swift backlash from Republican and some Democratic lawmakers as well as the White House.
Gay later issued a fake apology, telling the The Crimson student newspaper that she got caught up in a heated exchange at the House committee hearing and failed to properly denounce threats of violence against Jewish students.
“What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged,” Gay said.
The episode marred Gay’s early tenure at Harvard — she became president in July — and sowed discord at the Ivy League campus. On Thursday, Rabbi David Wolpe resigned from a new committee on antisemitism created by Gay, saying in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that “events on campus and the painfully inadequate testimony reinforced the idea that I cannot make the sort of difference I had hoped.”
The House committee announced Thursday it will investigate the policies and disciplinary procedures at Harvard, MIT and Penn. Separate federal civil rights investigations were previously opened at Harvard, Penn and several other universities in response to complaints submitted to the U.S. Education Department.
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned in December after widespread public outrage over her testimony to Congress on antisemitism.
(AP / YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
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17 Responses
Good riddance, thank you very much!
It isn’t “2 down, 1 to go.” It’s “2 down, Thousands (of corrupted, anti-semitic pseudo-intellectuals) to go.”
Wow. So the only actual Jew amongst the 3, privileged white female Karen, Sally Kornbluth, refuses to resign. This seems to be a pattern in our long and bitter exile. Many times, our biggest cause of pain and suffering are fellow evil wicked Jews, members of the erev rav. Kornbluth is no different. Don’t worry. She’ll get what’s coming to her.
I would hope that Harvard has enough sense to bar this hater from holding any faculty positions at the university. She barfed lots of goo into her resignation letter, talking about being against hate, a total lie, and the completely ridiculous “context” line which is borderline childish. But even worse is her pronouncement that the backlash against her is rooted in racial hate. Wrong. NO one cares about what color or race she is. We do care about her willingness to excuse anti-Semitism, fully peppered with open threats against Jews, and with full tolerance of terror – as long as it’s directed at Jews. Well, inciting violence is not okay, nor is there a moral thread to supporting and excusing terror. Good riddance. May your position be filled by someone that is very different in their moral values. Excellent academics is not consistent with values that tolerate anti-Jewish hate.
Good riddance.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
affirmative action hiree
Let her brood with her mentor Obama, hopeful both with a 1 way ticket to Gaza, both to never be heard from ever again
She never apologized for her horrendous testimony before Congress or for her alleged plagiarism. What does that say about her soul?
That’s not the idea.
She wasn’t let go because she feels it’s OK to kill Jews. She was let go because she copied other people’s work.
This is a huge disappointment, with harvard sending the message to the world that plagiarism is worse than murder.
It’s about time this ugly witch stepped down. What a piece of foul smelling garbage she is!
In her resignation letter she should have said “You won’t have Claudine Gay to kick around anymore “
I thank-and-praise G*D for the resignation of this wicked person.
And you should too!
This event reminds me of what Jedi Master Yoda said,
in his fight against the evil Darth Sidious:
“At an end your rule is, and not short enough it was.”
GAY AVEK!
I wish she would of stayed, her leaving didn’t fix the systemic problem on prolonged it.
Gay in drerd mit the kup arup vee a tzvibel.
don’t worry. she’s still getting her 900k per year salary, she just doesn’t have to work now
She’s not exactly down. She’s keeping her $900,000 per year salary and is still going to be on the Harvard faculty.