Harvard University has decided to retain President Claudine Gay in her position, despite the controversy surrounding her recent appearance before Congress.
The pressure for Dr. Gay to step down escalated following her reluctance to address whether students advocating for the genocide of Jewish people would face disciplinary consequences.
Over the weekend, nearly 700 staff members expressed support for her in a letter.
The school’s board, in a statement on Tuesday, reaffirmed their backing for her leadership.
‘Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing,’ said the Harvard Corporation, the highest governing board at the university.
‘In this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay,’ the 13-member board added.
Last week, Dr. Gay, alongside Ms. Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth, testified at a House of Representatives hearing on antisemitism.
The confirmation of Dr. Gay continuing as president comes just days after the University of Pennsylvania’s leader, Elizabeth Magill, announced her resignation due to a similar backlash over her congressional testimony.
Amid challenging questions from Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Dr. Gay denounced calls for the genocide of Jews as abhorrent. She clarified that the determination of whether it would breach Harvard’s code of conduct on bullying and harassment depended on the context.
Dr. Gay issued an apology in an interview with Harvard’s campus newspaper, the Crimson, shortly after the incident.
‘When words amplify distress and pain, I don’t know how you could feel anything but regret,’ she said.
In its statement, the Harvard Corporation said calls for genocide were “despicable” and added that Dr Gay’s initial statement ‘should have been an immediate, direct, and unequivocal condemnation’.
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But the school noted Harvard’s president had apologised for how she handled her testimony before Congress.
‘Harvard’s mission is advancing knowledge, research, and discovery that will help address deep societal issues and promote constructive discourse, and we are confident that President Gay will lead Harvard forward toward accomplishing this vital work,’ the board said.
Nearly 700 faculty members signed a petition over the weekend asking Harvard to “resist political pressures that are at odds with Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom” and keep Dr Gay as president.
Members of Harvard’s faculty and alumni had written letters in support of Dr Gay, including dozens of black faculty members who argued that some of the accusations against the president were “specious and politically motivated”.
But Harvard Hillel, a Jewish advocacy group on campus, said her failure to condemn calls for genocide had been “profoundly shocking”. In a statement it added that “President Gay’s failure to properly condemn this speech calls into question her ability to protect Jewish students” at the university.
More than 70 lawmakers, mostly Republicans, demanded Dr. Gay’s resignation, citing her responses during the hearing as “abhorrent.”
The aftermath of the Gaza war has seen a surge in pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests on college campuses across the US, prompting worries about both Islamophobia and antisemitism.
Harvard University welcomed its first Black president in its 368-year history with the appointment of Dr. Gay in July.
Dr. Gay, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, earned a degree in economics from Stanford University, where she previously held a teaching position.
After obtaining a PhD in government from Harvard, Dr. Gay initiated her teaching career in African and African-American Studies at the university in 2007.