Claudine Gay’s resignation as Harvard President came amid attacks against her character. According to its board of overseers, offensive and even racist language had been sent via emails and phone calls targeting Gay directly.
Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager, levelled accusations that she plagiarized academic work. Congress also expressed displeasure with her congressional testimony regarding antisemitism after Hamas launched its attack against Israel on October 7th.
Outrage
Claudine Gay’s resignation came following weeks of turmoil within Harvard and its peer schools after she gave indirect and legalistic testimony at a congressional hearing regarding campus antisemitism. At that hearing, Claudine was asked whether calls for Hamas killing as war crime could violate their institutions’ codes of conduct or anti-bullying policies.
Civil rights advocates were quick to respond with outrage to what they see as conservative activists’ attempts at dismantling programs that promote campus diversity. Civil rights activists point out the racism-tinged accusations levelled against Gay, including plagiarism allegations in her work, as an alarming indicator of what may happen if Black leaders are targeted.
Gay’s supporters argue that his controversy serves as evidence that public outrage can influence institutions at a high level. As an example, they point out Yale University President Lee Bollinger who was forced to resign last year over an offensive speech about sexual assault which included insensitive jokes about African-Americans.
Plagiarism
Claudine Gay became embroiled in an unprecedented scandal following her controversial congressional testimony about campus antisemitism last December, when she faced accusations of plagiarism in her academic writing. While Gay denied these charges, new evidence led her to step down this week – making her six month tenure at Harvard one of its shortest ever.
Students were stunned, expecting her to serve a longer tenure as president.
Gay’s controversy illustrates that even high-profile university leaders can come under intense scrutiny. She’s not the first president to lose their job over plagiarism allegations – Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Robert Caslen also left their posts following similar accusations.
Gay’s critics believe she did not properly cite her sources, while her supporters find her departure an injustice. Harvard Crimson editor Tommy Barone joins our panel to explore what lessons can be drawn from Gay’s downfall as part of our series “The Plagiarism Crisis” on Morning Brew; for more information please visit our website.
Antisemitism
Gay first made headlines after attending a contentious congressional hearing about antisemitism at Harvard and other elite American universities. Subsequently, she became subject to allegations that she plagiarized academic writings–an accusation her defenders believe was driven by conservative activists.
Gay is the daughter of Haitian immigrants and became both first Black female president of Harvard and second Black president overall. On 5 December she and representatives from Penn and MIT were called before Congress to testify regarding antisemitism at their schools following Hamas’ October 7 attack against Israel; their legalistic responses garnered widespread condemnation by donors with important influence.
Conservative critics were quick to criticize Gay based on her race and gender. They noted her elevation due to her activism on behalf of black women, with accusations of plagiarism being driven by racism. Gay’s supporters noted how susceptible people of color can be when accusations with potential racial undertones arise against them.
Resignation
Claudine Gay’s resignation as Harvard University President came after a backlash to her congressional testimony about campus antisemitism and new plagiarism accusations. Some supporters of Gay believe her departure demonstrates how public outrage can prompt positive change even at elite institutions like Harvard; others see her ouster as evidence that people of color are particularly susceptible to accusations tainted with racism.
Gay’s critics were most critical of her testimony at a congressional hearing last December where she and the presidents of MIT and Penn were interrogated by Congress about how their schools deal with antisemitism on campus. Congress asked about specific actions they have taken against antisemitism; their answers were seen as vague or insufficiently condemning any calls for genocide against Jews on campus; criticism also was levelled against Gay for failing to explicitly state such threats would violate campus regulations.
Bill Ackman and conservative activists like Christopher Rufo kept up pressure on Harvard as part of their plan against institutions favored by the left, including new plagiarism allegations that further intensified tensions and ultimately led Harvard’s Board to request Gay’s resignation from Harvard’s leadership.
