- Before Claudine Gay stepped down as Harvard’s president, she had acquired a torrent of threats.
- The loss of life threats and racist assaults led to Gay’s residence being watched by police 24/7, per The Times.
- Gay resigned following her broadly criticized congressional testimony and allegations of plagiarism.
Claudine Gay’s departure from the Harvard presidency was the results of a weekslong marketing campaign towards her management, first for her look earlier than a now-infamous congressional panel on campus antisemitism after which for allegations of plagiarism.
Gay, who final yr turned the primary Black president in Harvard’s almost 400-year historical past, had retained the assist of the highly effective Harvard Corporation after her widely-criticized congressional testimony. Gay apologized for her remarks, stating that she had gotten tangled in an alternate concerning “policies and procedures” and will have extra forcefully denounced threats of violence towards Jewish college students within the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
But inside two weeks of a Dec. 12 assertion the place the company expressed their continued backing of Gay, she started to lose the arrogance of some members of the board, based on The New York Times.
Throughout the ordeal, she acquired a torrent of loss of life threats, racist notes, and cellphone calls which solely intensified as December progressed, based on The Times. Gay, who had solely not too long ago moved into the Harvard president’s official residence, would decide up the cellphone solely to be met with racial slurs, per the report.
The Times additionally reported that Gay’s residence was being watched 24 hours a day.
Gay stepped down from the Harvard presidency on Jan. 2, ending what was the shortest tenure within the college’s historical past.
“After consultation with members of the 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,” she wrote to the Harvard neighborhood.
In her assertion, Gay additionally known as out not solely critics of her prior work but additionally the non-public racist assaults that had been lobbed at her.
“Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor —two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus,” she wrote.
Gay’s exit from management elicited intense reactions throughout the general public sphere, and for a lot of professors in Cambridge, her resignation was the fruits of what they stated was a focused conservative marketing campaign. Some professors additionally expressed concern concerning the independence of universities.
“I think it sends a message to the public that universities in the United States can be bullied and attacked for political reasons,” Government professor Ryan D. Enos advised The Harvard Crimson. “This was the university caving to a mob.”