Claudine Gay, a leading professor in the fields of Government, Political-Science and African-American Studies, was named the first Black president and the second female president of Harvard University in July of 2023.
Almost exactly six months later, the university president resigned on account of growing pressure from conservative media sources, and right-wing politicians.
Gay’s resignation has sparked debates across the US as to why she faced so much backlash.
Though she was accused of academic plagiarism and struggled mightily with her wording in response to on-campus controversy, many believe this backlash was a result of conservative prejudice and white entitlement which has existed for so long in Ivy League academia.
Claudine Gay was born the daughter of Haitian parents who immigrated to the U.S. She received her Bachelors at Stanford and her PhD at Harvard, before becoming a–per The Harvard Gazette–“widely admired higher education leader and distinguished scholar of democracy and political participation.”
But once she ascended to the presidency, Gay faced many challenges which threatened her title.
On December 5th, she and other university presidents were called to testify before Congress regarding allegations of antisemitism. During the testimony she was asked by New York Representative Elise M. Stefanik whether “…calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment.”
Critics claim that Gay’s failure to give a direct, yes-or-no answer to the question caused Stefanik to demand that Gay resign as president of Harvard.
Two other top-notch university presidents who also fumbled their responses to this question, faced the same predicament, one of whom also resigned.
In the midst of uproar following the congressional testimony, conservative newspaper Washington Free Beacon and right-wing activist Christopher F. Rufo accused Gay of academic plagiarism in her earlier work. However, Harvard’s governing board did not find sufficient evidence to render Gay in violation of their academic conduct.
In fact, Harvard officials stated that Gay’s publications merely “revealed a few instances of inadequate citation.”
Still, criticism against Gay persisted, and the conservative media in particular was particularly vocal about its disapproval.
On January 2nd, Claudine Gay officially resigned, stating, “It has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.”
Her statement described the taxing difficulty she had faced as university president, placing particular emphasis on the racism that she faced following the congressional testimony.
The resignation of Harvard’s first Black president generated a plethora of reactions from a multitude of sources.
While some right-leaning sources support her resignation–claiming they did not believe she was qualified to be Harvard’s president–other left-leaning sources maintained that there was a target on her back from the moment she was sworn in as Harvard’s president, due to her race.
The campaign against Gay was largely led by conservatives, and their success proves that pressure and coercion does work. Following Gay’s resignation, Rufo posted: “We must not stop until we have abolished DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) ideology from every institution in America.”
Bill Ackman, billionaire alumnus of and donor to Harvard opined that Gay had only been hired to the post because of the color of her skin, and that she should have been terminated based on these accusations of plagiarism.
Though Claudine Gay will remain at Harvard, experts believe that Gay’s story marks the beginning of a conservative war on academic inclusion, a foundationally liberal ideal.
Such contention between right-and-left-wing only exacerbates the already polarized political stage of the United States’ 2024 presidential election.