Harvard President Resigns After Plagiarism Allegations

Harvard University President Claudine Gay has officially handed in her resignation following plagiarism claims, ending her brief six-month tenure.

The resignation comes amid new allegations of plagiarism and the recent controversy over her congressional testimony on antisemitism at a hearing last month, Erudera.com reports.

Harvard’s provost and chief academic officer, Alan Garber, will step in as the interim president while the university searches for a permanent replacement for Gay.

Claudine Gay, the first Black person and the second woman to lead the prestigious university faced criticism after her appearance in a December 5 congressional hearing alongside the University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth.

Magill and Gay were criticized for not answering directly the question of whether the calling for genocide of Jews would violate codes of conduct in their universities.

Penn’s president, Magill, resigned just four days after the hearing, while MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth, has also been pressured to step down in the face of calls for responsibility.

In her resignation letter, Gay said she made the decision after consulting with members of the school’s governing body, the Harvard Corporation.

“It has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual,” the letter stated.

Harvard Corporation said it accepted “with great sadness” the news of Gay’s decision to resign.

“While President Gay has acknowledged missteps and has taken responsibility for them, it is also true that she has shown remarkable resilience in the face of deeply personal and sustained attacks,” the statement from the Harvard Corporation said, adding that in some cases, Gay has faced racist criticism through emails and phone calls.

“We condemn such attacks in the strongest possible terms.”

It also said that it will continue to be in consultation with Harvard’s community to select the next president of the university.

Gay earned her bachelor’s degree in 1992 from Stanford and completed her Ph.D. studies in government at Harvard, winning the Toppan Prize for best dissertation in political science.

She was selected as the 30th President of Harvard, taking office on July 1, 2023. Before being named president, she led Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences as the Edgerley Family Dean.

Her time as Harvard president is believed to be the shortest since Harvard, the oldest university in the US, was established in 1636.

Related:

>> Harvard Student Groups Blame Israel for Hamas Attacks, CEOs Want to Blacklist Them

Photo by Jon Chase/Harvard University