Hundreds of members of Harvard’s faculty, as well as the university’s alumni association, are circling their wagons around the school’s president, Claudine Gay, as she faces mounting criticism and calls to resign over comments she made to Congress about antisemitism on campus.
More than 500 current faculty members have signed an open letter in support of Gay, urging the university’s board not to remove her from her role, in addition to a unanimous expression of support from the 13-member Harvard Alumni Association Executive Committee, according to the university’s paper, The Harvard Crimson.
Gay has been a target of significant backlash following her testimony to Congress on December 5 during a hearing about antisemitism on campus, in which she stated in response to a pointed line of questioning from New York Rep. Elise Stefanik that calling for a “genocide of Jews” may be a violation of the school’s code of conduct “depending on the context.”
The Harvard president appeared in the hearing next to former University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth, who have also faced sharp criticism for their remarks. Magill has since resigned.
Gay has apologized for her remarks to Congress, telling The Crimson she “got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures.”
“What 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 — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged,” she added.
Though Gay has received support from some members of faculty and alumni groups, others in the Harvard community have fiercely condemned her remarks, with a Jewish alumni association saying her comments made to Congress reflect the school’s “pattern of deflection” and “disregard for Jewish life.”
Others have stopped donating to the school and removed the university from their wills over the controversy.
More than 70 members of Congress, led by Stefanik, have called on Gay to resign or be removed by the school’s governing board in an open letter sent Friday, The Crimson reported.
“Given this moment of crisis, we demand that your boards immediately remove each of these presidents from their positions and that you provide an actionable plan to ensure that Jewish and Israeli students, teachers, and faculty are safe on your campuses,” the letter read.
It continued: “Anything less than these steps will be seen as your endorsement of what Presidents Gay, Magill, and Kornbluth said to Congress and an act of complicity in their antisemitic posture.”
Another leading voice in the calls for Gay’s resignation is hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who has set his sights on ensuring she, alongside UPenn’s Magill and MIT’s Kornbluth, resign “in disgrace” over their testimony.
“The presidents’ answers reflect the profound educational, moral and ethical failures that pervade certain of our elite educational institutions due in large part to their failed leadership,” Ackman wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
He added: “Why has antisemitism exploded on campus and around the world? Because of leaders like Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth who believe genocide depends on the context.”
Representatives for Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
