Harvard president Claudine Gay resigns amid plagiarism claims, backlash from antisemitism testimony

CAMBRIDGE: Harvard University president Claudine Gay resigned on Tuesday amid plagiarism accusations and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say unequivocally that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school's conduct policy. Gay is the second Ivy League president to resign in the past month following the congressional testimony -- Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, resigned on December 9.

Gay, Harvard's first black president, announced her departure just months into her tenure in a letter to the Harvard community. Following the congressional hearing, Gay's academic career came under intense scrutiny by conservative activists who unearthed several instances of alleged plagiarism in her 1997 doctoral dissertation. The Harvard Corporation, Harvard's governing board, initially rallied behind Gay, saying a review of her scholarly work turned up "a few instances of inadequate citation" but no evidence of research misconduct.

Days later, the Harvard Corporation said it found two additional examples of "duplicative language without appropriate attribution". The board said Gay would update her dissertation and request corrections. The Harvard Corporation said the resignation came "with great sadness" and thanked Gay for her "deep and unwavering commitment to Harvard and to the pursuit of academic excellence". Alan M Garber, provost and chief academic officer, will serve as interim president until Harvard finds a replacement, the board said in a statement.

Garber, an economist and physician, has served as provost for 12 years. Gay's resignation was celebrated by the conservatives who put her alleged plagiarism in the national spotlight -- with additional plagiarism accusations surfacing as recently as Monday in The Washington Free Beacon. Christopher Rufo, an activist who has helped rally the GOP against higher education, said he is "glad she is gone".

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"Rather than take responsibility for minimising antisemitism, committing serial plagiarism, intimidating the free press, and damaging the institution, she calls her critics racist," Rufo said on X, formerly Twitter. "This is the poison" of diversity, equity and inclusion ideology, said Rufo, who has led conservative attacks on DEI both in business and in education.

Gay, in her letter, said it has been "distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigour -- two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am -- and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fuelled by racial animus".