The turbulence unleashed on the campuses of USA for the alleged permissiveness with the antisemitism unleashed after Israel’s military response in Gaza to the Hamas attacks of October 7 add up to a new episode. This Tuesday the president of harvard, Claudia Gayhas announced his resignation.
Gay had been singled out in recent weeks for accusations of plagiarism in her academic work, but the biggest controversy that has surrounded her broke out earlier, since at the beginning of December she was one of three university officials who appeared before Congress in a hearing dedicated to anti-Semitism on campuses.
In that session, Gay did not say unequivocally that calls to genocide of jews would violate campus behavior policies. Another of the witnesses at the hearing, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, Liz Magillalso announced that he would resign from his position after criticism of his appearance.
Gay apologized for his testimony in an interview with ‘The Harvard Crimson’, the university newspaper that this Tuesday also gave the exclusive news of his resignation. Although some important donors from the center they pressured her to be expelled, More than 700 faculty members showed their support to continue in office, support also shown by the Executive Committee of the Alumni Association and the Harvard Corporation.
The shortest presidency
With just six months and two days later taking office, the presidency of Claudine Gray It has been the shortest in the history of the university. For now, university spokesman Jonathan L. Swain has declined to comment on Gay’s resignation. Also, it is not yet clear who will be appointed to take up his position, says the university newspaper.
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The first black rector of the prestigious university had been under scrutiny for weeks for her management of institutional communication around the war between Israel and Hamas.
Gay was also recently accused of plagiarism in her academic work and just yesterday he was the subject of a complaint to the university which requires investigation because the examples of material not properly cited would rise to fifty, according to the newspaper ‘The Washington Free Beacon’.