Claudine Gay, the first person of color and the second woman to be president of Harvard, said in a letter to the community that “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.”
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Embattled Harvard President Claudine Gay is resigning, saying in a statement Tuesday that it was in the university's "best interests" so the community could move past the challenges it's facing. (Read the full statement below.)
Gay, who became Harvard's 30th president on July 1, has been facing criticism amid scrutiny for how the prestigious university handles allegations of antisemitism and for instances of "inadequate citation" in her academic work. She'll return to Harvard's faculty.
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Harvard Provost Alan Garber will serve as interim president while the Harvard Corporation, the university's governing body, searches for a permanent replacement, the board said in a statement Tuesday. It thanked "Gay for her deep and unwavering commitment to Harvard and to the pursuit of academic excellence" and noted that the decision to accept her resignation was made sorrowfully.
"While President Gay has acknowledged missteps and has taken responsibility for them, it is also true that she has shown remarkable resilience in the face of deeply personal and sustained attacks. While some of this has played out in the public domain, much of it has taken the form of repugnant and in some cases racist vitriol directed at her through disgraceful emails and phone calls. We condemn such attacks in the strongest possible terms," the Harvard Corporation said in the statement.
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Gay is the first person of color and the second woman to be president of Harvard. An academic who studied political behavior with a focus on race and politics in the U.S., she joined Harvard in 2006 as a government professor and began as a dean, leading the social science department and then the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
The antisemitism scandal erupted just over three months after Gay began her tenure as president.
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After Hamas launched a deadly surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, killing hundreds of civilians and sparking the ongoing war in Gaza, a group of more than two dozen student groups and other Harvard affiliates released a letter blaming the violence on the Israeli government.
Criticism of the student groups was swift; it was followed by criticism of Gay for not quickly condemning the comments, including from former Harvard President Larry Summers.
Gay soon did release a statement condemning Hamas' attack on civilians and addressing the student groups' comments, followed by a video. But as outrage over the statement simmered, several websites posted the names of students who belonged to the groups, according to The Harvard Crimson student newspaper, which reported that a truck sponsored by one of those groups drove through Cambridge displaying students' names and labeling them antisemitic.
Citing allegations of antisemitism on college campuses, a House committee called Gay and the presidents of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania to testify. The hourslong Dec. 5 hearing prompted a new round of outrage after the trio appeared to flounder when asked whether calling for the genocide of the Jewish people would violate school policy; UPenn's president resigned within days.
But after apologizing for testimony and receiving support from hundreds of members of faculty, Gay received the backing of the Harvard Corporation, which said last month that extensive deliberations affirmed "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."
Meanwhile, the school was looking into allegations that Gay had committed plagiarism in her academy work. While an independent review did not find she committed plagiarism, the review led to Gay requesting corrections be added to two articles and her Ph.D. dissertation, completed at Harvard, The Boston Globe and Harvard Crimson reported last month.
The Boston Globe and Harvard Crimson first reported on Tuesday that Gay would be stepping down, each citing a source familiar with the decision.
On Tuesday, after Gay's resignation was announced, many of the school's vocal critics cheered, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., the member of Congress whose questioning on antisemitism went viral.
"Claudine Gay’s morally bankrupt answers to my questions made history as the most viewed Congressional testimony in the history of the U.S. Congress," she said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, while promising to continue investigating higher education.
Some of the school's faculty is critical of how the university's governing body, Harvard Corporation, has handled the allegations.
“If plagiarism took place here in a serious and sustained way, which it may well have, then there should be consequences," history professor Alison Johnson said. "To let social media or donors or mysterious conversations with individual members of the corporation make a determination about when it’s time for the university president to go, I think endangers the independence of the university.”
Harvard students have mixed opinions.
“I think that there was definitely among students a lot of frustration around what was perceived as a double standard with her kind of receiving a second chance on a plagiarism accusation that students could be suspended for,” one said.
“I think this is very much about outside influence and the way that it’s really pressuring and that’s just deeply problematic,” another shared.
Harvard's Jewish Alumni Alliance agrees with Gay's decision to resign.
“We wanted a partner on campus to work with us, so that Jewish students feel heard, so that our experiences matter and that our safety is a concern," Roni Brunn said.
Read Claudine Gay's full statement, sent to the Harvard community on Tuesday:
Dear Members of the Harvard Community,
It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president. This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have looked forward to working with so many of you to advance the commitment to academic excellence that has propelled this great university across centuries. But, after consultation with members of the Corporation, 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.
It is a singular honor to be a member of this university, which has been my home and my inspiration for most of my professional career. My deep sense of connection to Harvard and its people has made it all the more painful to witness the tensions and divisions that have riven our community in recent months, weakening the bonds of trust and reciprocity that should be our sources of strength and support in times of crisis. Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor—two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am—and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.
I believe in the people of Harvard because I see in you the possibility and the promise of a better future. These last weeks have helped make clear the work we need to do to build that future—to combat bias and hate in all its forms, to create a learning environment in which we respect each other’s dignity and treat one another with compassion, and to affirm our enduring commitment to open inquiry and free expression in the pursuit of truth. I believe we have within us all that we need to heal from this period of tension and division and to emerge stronger. I had hoped with all my heart to lead us on that journey, in partnership with all of you. As I now return to the faculty, and to the scholarship and teaching that are the lifeblood of what we do, I pledge to continue working alongside you to build the community we all deserve.
When I became president, I considered myself particularly blessed by the opportunity to serve people from around the world who saw in my presidency a vision of Harvard that affirmed their sense of belonging—their sense that Harvard welcomes people of talent and promise, from every background imaginable, to learn from and grow with one another. To all of you, please know that those doors remain open, and Harvard will be stronger and better because they do.
As we welcome a new year and a new semester, I hope we can all look forward to brighter days. Sad as I am to be sending this message, my hopes for Harvard remain undimmed. When my brief presidency is remembered, I hope it will be seen as a moment of reawakening to the importance of striving to find our common humanity—and of not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education. I trust we will all find ways, in this time of intense challenge and controversy, to recommit ourselves to the excellence, the openness, and the independence that are crucial to what our university stands for—and to our capacity to serve the world.
Sincerely,
Claudine Gay
