|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Harvard President Claudine Gay announced her resignation on Tuesday, almost a month after her widely-panned congressional testimony in which she refused to explicitly say that calls for the genocide of the Jewish people violated campus anti-harassment rules.
In addition to criticism of her inadequate handling of growing antisemitism at Harvard following to October 7th Hamas attack in Israel, Gay had also faced mounting pressure to step down in recent weeks following revelations of suspected plagiarism in multiple past academic works.
Read Gay’s resignation in full HERE.
At a House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Dec. 5, Gay was asked, “At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?”
She refused to give a yes or no answer, saying only, “It depends on the context.”
Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) CEO Sacha Roytman commented on Tuesday, “This is the first good decision Mrs. Gay and the Harvard Corporation have made in connection with the unprecedented outbreak of on-campus antisemitism. Now is the time for Harvard to apply its own code of conduct to protect its Jewish and pro-Israel students, faculty, employees, and alumni from those who spread Jew-hatred.”
“Harvard must deal with its antisemitism problem now, not only to protect its community but also to set the tone for its next president,” Roytman added. The university should officially adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism, use it as a guidepost for assessing antisemitic incidents, and hire a president who will embrace this approach. Staffing changes will accomplish nothing if the administration does not demonstrate that it takes antisemitism seriously.”
It looks like Ms. Gay’s continued employment at Harvard “depended on the context.”https://t.co/066b7DnBfn
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) January 2, 2024
Of the three university presidents who spoke at the congressional hearing, only MIT’s Sally Kornbluth now remains in her job. University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down less than a week after the hearing.
