Harvard board supports embattled president Claudine Gay despite antisemitism, plagiarism scandals

Following a board meeting on Monday and a letter signed by over 700 faculty members, the Harvard Corporation has announced that university president Claudine Gay will be retaining her position amid backlash from students, donors, and the public over her testimony to Congress regarding antisemitism on campus. Many deemed her performance unacceptable after she claimed that determining whether calls for the genocide of Jews violated the school's code of conduct depended on the context in which the words were uttered.

The Harvard Corporation revealed that its members "unanimously stand in support of President Gay," and maintained that despite her previous statements, she was dedicated to tackling the rampant Jew-hatred exhibited at the Boston institution.
 

"We today reaffirm our support for President Gay's continued leadership of Harvard University," members said in a joint statement. "Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing."

Members acknowledged that Harvard's initial statement "should have been an immediate, direct, and unequivocal condemnation" of Hamas' latest round of violence, noting that "so many people have suffered tremendous damage and pain" as a result of the Iranian-backed Palestinian terrorist organization's actions.

"Calls for genocide are despicable and contrary to fundamental human values," the statement continued. "President Gay has apologized for how she handled her congressional testimony and has committed to redoubling the University's fight against antisemitism."

"In this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay," members added. "At Harvard, we champion open discourse and academic freedom, and we are united in our strong belief that calls for violence against our students and disruptions of the classroom experience will not be tolerated." 

In the days since Gay's testimony, allegations that she may have plagiarized a number of her academic works, including her 1997 PhD dissertation, have emerged.

Investigations into the papers by the Fellows of Harvard found that Gay in fact did have instances of "inadequate citation" in her work, though they did not constitute a "violation of Harvard's standards for research misconduct." Gay has requested a chance to correct her mistakes.

The news that Gay will remain in charge of Harvard comes just days after her University of Pennsylvania counterpart, Liz Magill, resigned over comments she made during the aforementioned Congressional hearing.