Embattled Harvard President Claudine Gay cleared a hurdle to keep her job after the Harvard Corporation board voted to support her.
Embattled Harvard President Claudine Gay cleared a hurdle to keeping her job after the Harvard Corporation board issued a statement unanimously affirming its support for her amid backlash over her response at a congressional hearing to a question about the « genocide of Jews. »
« As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University, » the Harvard Corporation said in a statement to the university community on Tuesday. « 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 board, the Ivy League schools top governing body, added, « In this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay. »
Gay had faced calls to resign after she and the leaders of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology engaged in four hours of tense testimony in front of the Republican-led House Education Committee last week. The Harvard president testified alongside MIT’s Sally Kornbluth and Liz Magill, who resigned from her role at the University of Pennsylvania following backlash to her testimony, including a donor saying they were withdrawing a $100 million donation.
Last week’s hearing gave Republicans an opportunity to express frustration with the college presidents for not doing enough to aggressively condemn those on their campuses who the members said foster antisemitism.
