{"id":54137,"date":"2023-12-10T19:00:29","date_gmt":"2023-12-10T19:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/business\/pressure-grows-on-harvard-president-claudine-gay-after-penns-liz-magill-resignation\/"},"modified":"2023-12-10T19:00:30","modified_gmt":"2023-12-10T19:00:30","slug":"pressure-grows-on-harvard-president-claudine-gay-after-penns-liz-magill-resignation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=54137","title":{"rendered":"Pressure grows\u00a0on\u00a0Harvard President Claudine Gay after Penn\u2019s Liz Magill resignation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Now that Liz Magill has stepped down as president of the University of Pennsylvania, the spotlight has turned to her counterpart from Harvard University, Claudine Gay.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOne down. Two to go,\u201d Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York wrote on X<\/a>, formerly known as Twitter, with the \u201ctwo\u201d being a reference to Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth. \u201cIn the case of @Harvard, President Gay was asked by me 17x whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard\u2019s code of conduct. She spoke her truth 17x. And the world heard.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Stefanik serves on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which called on Magill, Gay, and Kornbluth last Tuesday to testify about\u00a0<\/strong>their responses to alleged incidents of antisemitism on their campuses in the wake of the\u00a0Israel-Hamas war.\n <\/p>\n

\n All three gave widely criticized testimony, in which they failed to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews as explicitly against campus harassment and bullying codes. On Friday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a letter to the governing boards of Harvard, Penn, and MIT urging them to remove their university leaders.\n <\/p>\n

\n Gay has since apologized for her remarks, \u201cI am sorry,\u201d she said in an interview with The Harvard Crimson\u00a0on Thursday. \u201cWords matter.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures,\u201d Gay told the student newspaper. \u201cWhat I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community \u2014 threats to our Jewish students \u2014 have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Harvard is one of several academic institutions to come under fire in recent months over\u00a0alleged antisemitism on campuses following the\u00a0terror attacks\u00a0by Hamas on October 7 and Israel\u2019s\u00a0subsequent strikes\u00a0on Gaza. Harvard is also among 14 colleges\u00a0under investigation\u00a0by the Department of Education since the attacks \u201cfor discrimination involving shared ancestry\u201d an umbrella term that covers both Islamophobia and antisemitism.\n <\/p>\n

\n Gay, a political scientist whose work focuses on intersections of politics and race, was inaugurated as Harvard\u2019s 30th president in July after serving as dean of the school\u2019s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.\n <\/p>\n

\n Unlike Gay, Penn\u2019s Magill was under fire for months prior to her resignation. Donors had been calling for Magill\u2019s resignation since September, when the university allowed speakers that Penn\u2019s administration acknowledged had a history of making antisemitic remarks to participate in the \u201cPalestine Writes Literature Festival\u201d on campus. Those existing tensions were further inflamed once the current Israel-Hamas war began.\n <\/p>\n

\n Gay has also been vocal in her acknowledgement of Jewish students\u2019 concerns.\n <\/p>\n

\n On October 7, a coalition of student groups released a statement placing the blame for Hamas\u2019 attacks on Israel\u2019s government. The letter drew sweeping condemnation from business leaders and alumni, who called for the students whose groups signed the statement to be blacklisted. A spokesperson for the coalition later wrote in a statement that the group \u201cstaunchly opposes violence against civilians \u2014 Palestinian, Israeli, or other.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Three days after the coalition posted its letter, Gay released a statement condemning the \u201cterrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas\u201d and affirming that \u201cno student group \u2014 not even 30 student groups \u2014 speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In a speech at Harvard\u2019s Jewish student organization in late October, Gay announced\u00a0 that she had assembled an advisory group of \u201cfaculty, staff, alumni, and religious leaders from the Jewish community\u201d who \u201cwill help us to think expansively and concretely about all the ways that antisemitism shows up on our campus and in our campus culture.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n That has not made Gay less susceptible to criticism, but her willingness to take accountability in the face of criticism may be the determining factor in whether she ultimately steps down.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Sunday, the Harvard Crimson cited \u201ca source close to the governing boards\u201d who said that Harvard\u2019s board is meeting on campus for a regularly scheduled meeting. CNN has reached out to Harvard for comment.\n <\/p>\n

\n Business leaders and alumni have criticized Gay and her counterparts over their perceived inaction in combatting antisemitism on their campuses. Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund CEO, has been among Gay\u2019s most vocal critics. Following her testimony before Congress, he demanded that Gay, along with Magill and Kornbluth, \u201cresign in disgrace,\u201d citing disgust with their testimony.\n <\/p>\n

\n Ackman, a Harvard graduate, has also questioned Gay\u2019s academic integrity and values, posting<\/a> on social media content that implies Gay, who is the first Black woman to lead Harvard, was hired to fulfill diversity metrics.\n <\/p>\n

\n But criticism from Harvard\u2019s community has largely framed discrimination on campus as a systemic issue, not a moral failing on Gay\u2019s part. In the statement announcing his resignation from Harvard\u2019s antisemitism advisory group last week following Gay\u2019s disastrous testimony, Rabbi David Wolpe said that combatting the combination of ideologies at Harvard that frame Jews as oppressors while \u201cbelittling and denying the Jewish experience \u2026 is the work of more than a committee or a single university.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt is not going to be changed by hiring or firing a single person,\u201d he wrote, after emphasizing that he believes Gay is \u201cboth a kind and thoughtful person.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Alumni donors \u2014 more than 1,800 of whom signed an open letter to Gay and Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana \u2014 have called for concrete reforms to support Jews on campus and have warned that they would withdraw their donations if those steps were not taken.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n