Claudine Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, is the second Ivy League president to quit after controversial Congressional testimony on campus antisemitism.
Gay resigned on Tuesday amid accusations of plagiarism 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 just months into her tenure in a letter to the Harvard community. Gay’s tenure as president — six months and two days — was the shortest recorded tenure in the position.
Following the congressional hearing, Gay’s academic career came under intense scrutiny over several instances of alleged plagiarism in her 1997 doctoral dissertation.
Harvard’s governing board rallied behind Gay, saying a review of her scholarly work turned up ‘a few instances of inadequate citation’, but no evidence of research misconduct.
Days later it revealed that it found two additional examples of ‘duplicative language without appropriate attribution’. The board said Gay would update her dissertation and request corrections.
The Harvard Corporation said the resignation came ‘with great sadness’ and thanked Gay for her ‘deep and unwavering commitment to Harvard and to the pursuit of academic excellence’.
Alan M. Garber, provost and chief academic officer, will serve as interim president until Harvard finds a replacement.
Gay’s letter said 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’.
Gay added, ‘It has 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’.
[Photo: Screenshot from House of Representative testimony/youtube]