Harvard President resigns following pro-'Israel' pressure
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Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, resigned surrounding backlash from a congressional hearing on "antisemitism" on university campuses.
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Harvard University President Claudine Gay speaks during a hearing of the House Committee on Education on Capitol Hill, Dec. 5, 2023, in Washington. (AP)
Harvard President Claudine Gay announced her resignation on Tuesday, following backlash from a collective congressional testimony she and her counterpart at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a former one at the University of Pennsylvania on the state of antisemitism on campus, according to Reuters.
Gay was also accused of plagiarizing her work in more recent months, a serious allegation that requires investigation and review.
Gay condemns pro-Palestinian slogan, critics say it's not enough
Previously in November, Gay condemned the pro-Palestinian slogan "from the river to the sea" and referred to other phrases she deemed "similarly hurtful" in an email addressed to the university community.
“Our community must understand that phrases such as ‘from the river to the sea’ bear specific historical meanings that to a great many people imply the eradication of Jews from Israel and engender both pain and existential fears within our Jewish community,” she wrote.
Representative Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), a Harvard alumnus, expressed to Politico that the statement from the student groups was "morally depraved." He labeled the university's response as "moral cowardice."
Gay and other university leaders encountered severe criticism in the aftermath of the issuance of the statement.
Read more: Harvard student statement blaming "Israel" condemned by US politicians
Intifada?
Earlier in December, several hundred Harvard faculty members endorsed a petition supporting the university's president amid backlash over her participation in a congressional hearing focused on the increase in anti-Semitism.
The petition cautions against succumbing to external pressure to dismiss Gay, emphasizing that doing so would contradict Harvard's dedication to academic freedom. It urges the administration to "defend the independence of the university", stating that “the critical work of defending a culture of free inquiry in our diverse community cannot proceed if we let its shape be dictated by outside forces.”
The petition followed a letter that was released Friday by Representative Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, signed by more than 70 mostly Republican members of #Congress, which called for the removal of Gay, Sally Kornbluth, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania since March 2022.
The controversy over the hearing focused on a contentious three-minute exchange between Stefanik and the three presidents. During the hearing, Stefanik considered that calls for an "Intifada" are calls for genocide against Jews. When asked whether calling for "the genocide of Jews" violates Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment, Gay answered that it depends on the context.
