Claudine Gay Ends Harvard's Shortest Presidency Amid Plagiarism Claims
Gay was hit with a slew of plagiarism charges and accusations of anti-semitism
Claudine Gay Ends Harvard's Shortest Presidency Amid Plagiarism Claims
A conservative advocacy group hired a billboard truck reading “It’s Moving Day Claudine Gay” to park outside the beleaguered administrator’s school-owned mansion on Tuesday.
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The organization, Accuracy in Media, also stationed a U-Haul vehicle outside the historic 1877 Loeb House to herald Gay’s leaving after she resigned at the College’s president on Tuesday.
Under unrelenting pressure, she agreed to step down amid double-barreled accusations of antisemitism and plagiarism in her academic papers.
“We had to come back to campus one last time to say farewell to @Harvard’s leading antisemite,” the group tweeted along with a picture of the two vehicles. “We even brought her a moving truck!”
Gay’s toppling stemmed from a spiraling campus debate over the Israel-Palestine conflict, with backers of the Jewish state accusing students and faculty of anti-semitism following Hamas’ deadly October 7 incursion that led to more than 1,000 deaths.
Those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause countered they had the right to critique Israeli bombing campaigns and a rising civilian death toll.
Gay found herself in the eye of an intensifying political storm after she refused to condemn student groups who blamed Israel for the Hamas attacks in a letter.
She then appeared before Congress on Dec. 5, and was taken to task for failing to adequately denounce calls for genocide of Jewish people.
Claudine Gay Ends Harvard's Shortest Presidency Amid Plagiarism Claims
Already wobbled, Gay was then hit with a slew of unrelated plagiarism charges, and was ultimately compelled to step down.
“In her repeated failures to condemn calls for complete and utter obliteration of Jews, Claudine Gay tacitly encouraged those who sought to spread hate at Harvard, where many Jews no longer feel safe to study, identify, and fully participate in the Harvard community,” Harvard Jewish Alliance spokesperson Roni Brunn said in a statement this week.
Other campus personnel — including 500 faculty members — previously defended Gay, asserting that the campaign to remove her was unjust.
“The critical work of defending a culture of free inquiry in our diverse community cannot proceed if we let its shape be dictated by outside forces,” they wrote in a the letter published by the Harvard student newspaper.
Gay will now return to Harvard’s faculty, where she served as a dean before being tapped to lead the school just six months ago.
Alan M. Garber, who currently serves as provost and chief academic officer, will serve as interim president until the school selects a new leader.
Source| NY Post
