The president of the prestigious Harvard University, Claudine Gay, submitted her resignation yesterday, amid criticism for her comments considered ambiguous on issues related to anti-Semitism on campus and accusations of plagiarism, according to the university newspaper.
“Harvard President Claudine Gay will resign Tuesday afternoon, ending the shortest presidency in the university’s history, according to a person with knowledge of the decision,” the Harvard Crimson reported before the university made it no comment Yes, Gay himself did, on the other hand, through a letter in which he pointed out that “it has been distressing that my commitments to combat hatred and defend academic rigor have been called into question.”
Claudine Gay has held the position for six months and has been the first black person and only the second woman to be appointed president of the university.
In a tense congressional hearing last month, Gay said calls to kill Jews were abhorrent. However, he added that it would depend on the context whether such comments would constitute a violation of Harvard’s code of conduct on bullying and harassment.
But there have been more controversies. Such as an unsigned complaint published Monday in The , a conservative online magazine that has spearheaded a campaign against Claudine Gay in recent weeks. The new complaint added accusations of plagiarism in academic works that were added to 40 others that had already circulated in the same way and apparently by the same accuser, according to The New York Times.
Harvard’s board investigated the allegations last month and found two published papers requiring review, but noted that Gay did not violate rules of conduct in his research.
The December congressional hearing also led to the ouster of Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, whose support had already been dented in recent months by her refusal to cancel a writers’ conference Palestinians She resigned as president four days later.
