The president of the prestigious Harvard University, Claudine Gay, has publicly apologized for comments she made in Congress that were considered anti-Semitic in the United States. “I’m sorry,” Gay told the university newspaper Harvard Crimson. “Words matter,” the driver admitted.
Gay came under fire after she was asked during a hearing in the Capitol on Tuesday whether calling for genocide against Jews violates Harvard’s rules of conduct. The top manager gave a rather evasive answer, which was mainly legal in nature, and said that it “depends on the context”.
Two other presidents of leading universities did the same in the hearing, where the administrators of three top American universities – Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – were asked about the unrest on their campuses since the war between Hamas and Israel has begun. They later added that their statements did not mean that people can get away with anti-Semitism at universities.
To the university newspaper Harvard Crimson Gay said Friday that she “should have had the presence of mind” to answer differently. “That calls for violence against our Jewish community – threats against our Jewish students – have no place at Harvard, and will never go unanswered,” the board chairman said.
The administrators’ answers led to a storm of reactions in the US, all the way to the White House. “It is unbelievable that this has to be said: calls for genocide are beastly and go against everything we stand for as a country,” said White House spokesman Andrew Bates.
Top institutions Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT are all now facing an official investigation by the US Congress into their efforts to tackle anti-Semitism.
The directors’ statements also caused anger among several wealthy financiers of the institutes. For example, millionaire Ross Stevens, owner of investment company Stone Ridge, withdrew a donation of 93 million euros to the University of Pennsylvania. The millionaire has been angry with ‘Penn’, where he graduated, for some time, because he believes that the top of the university is acting too laxly against threats aimed at Jewish students.
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