The president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, will resign in the coming hours following accusations of plagiarism in the content of her academic works and protests over her refusal to condemn the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7 last year, particularly the content of a congressional hearing on anti-Semitism last December.
Her tenure as the first African-American woman at the head of the university was the shortest in the history of the American Ivy League university, six months and two days. The announcement will be made today by the Corporation, the university’s governing body which only three weeks ago expressed support for Gay’s statements before a House Committee. Gay is also expected to make a statement about her resignation. “Anti-Semitic rhetoric, when it transforms into bullying, abuse and intimidation, is a conduct against which action must be taken and so we do,” he told Congress, after explaining that calling for the “genocide of the Jews” violates the rules of the university “but it depends on the context”. Gay is a scholar of political science, gender and race.
