Harvard President Claudine Gay will stay in her role following a wave of backlash from last week’s congressional hearing on campus antisemitism, the Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper, reported Tuesday morning.
Members of Harvard University’s faculty sent a letter to the Harvard Corporation, the university’s governing body, urging the university not to oust the president in an hourslong meeting on Monday. The Harvard Corporation announced it “unanimously stands in support” of Gay keeping her post on Tuesday.
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“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,” the Harvard Corporation said in a statement.
“Harvard’s mission is advancing knowledge, research, and discovery that will help address deep societal issues and promote constructive discourse, and we are confident that President Gay will lead Harvard forward toward accomplishing this vital work,” the Harvard Corporation wrote.
More than 700 Harvard faculty members signed a petition backing Gay, showing their support for the embattled president in a letter to the Harvard Corporation. The Harvard Alumni Association Executive Committee said it “unanimously and unequivocally supports” Gay keeping her job, according to a letter the committee sent to university officials obtained by NBC News.
Support for Gay ran deep, as the Harvard Crimson editorial board wrote on Tuesday in defense of the president, shortly before the announcement she would not resign, that “Republican members of Congress used the grave problem of antisemitism as a cudgel against higher education.”
“We unequivocally reject the calls for Gay to resign. And we urge you: Do not allow Congress to tell the story of this moment on campus,” the board wrote. “We are students at Harvard, and this is our campus. We have witnessed, firsthand, the vitriol of these past few months, and we would like to set the record straight.”
“For the good of free speech, of free inquiry, of a free democracy, Harvard — and Gay — must not yield.”
Gay faced public outrage, along with University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, who resigned on Saturday, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth, after all three appeared before Congress to provide testimony over their universities’ responses to antisemitism on campus amid the Israel-Hamas war.
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s hearing one week ago lasted nearly six hours, and the three elite university presidents faced a heated line from congressional Republicans. Gay was asked multiple times whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard’s code of conduct.
“Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules on bullying and harassment?” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) asked Gay. Stefanik posed the same question to Magill and Kornbluth.
“It can be, depending on the context,” Gay responded.
“What’s the context?” Stefanik asked.
“Targeted at an individual,” Gay said.
Stefanik continued to pressure Gay to give a “yes” or “no” answer on whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s policies.
“Antisemitic rhetoric, when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation. That is actionable conduct, and we do take action,” Gay said while Stefanik called for her resignation, adding, “These are unacceptable answers across the board.”
Following the hearing, Gay issued a statement clarifying her remarks, saying “calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile” and they “have no place at Harvard.”
Still, Gay’s remarks had immediate consequences as thousands of donors threatened to withhold donations unless Harvard took action to address antisemitism. A Republican-led congressional committee launched an investigation into antisemitism at Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania.
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Gay later issued an apology through an interview with the Harvard Crimson, telling the student newspaper, “I am sorry. Words matter.”
“When words amplify distress and pain, I don’t know how you could feel anything but regret,” Gay said in an interview published Friday.
