KEVIN DIETSCH / AFP
End of the presidency of Claudine Gay, who nevertheless became the first black president of the prestigious American university.
UNITED STATES – When she became the first black president of Harvard University last July, she is now the shortest-serving president in the history of the American university since its founding. In a resignation letter released on Tuesday, January 2, Harvard President Claudine Gay announced this difficult decision.
This resignation is mainly motivated by allegations of plagiarism related to his academic work, fueled by a conservative quarter. Not to mention the sharp criticism that she linked to her answers to the elected Republican Elise Stefanik during a parliamentary hearing on the fight against anti-Semitism on campus, who equated certain students' calls for the “intifada” with an incitement to “genocide” against Jews in Israel and around the world.”
“It is with a heavy heart, but with deep love for Harvard, that I write to inform you that I will be resigning my position as president,” Claudine Gay, 53, wrote in her letter.
“It was complicated to see doubts hanging over my commitment to confront hate and respect academic rigor… And it was frightening to be the subject of personal attacks and threats fueled by racism,” Claudine Gay also stated in her Letter.
Political science professor Claudine Gay has been under fire in recent weeks, amid flared passions around the resurgence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at America's major universities.
A failed hearing
On Tuesday, December 5, Claudine Gay and her colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Elizabeth Magill and Sally Kornbluth, answered questions from elected House officials for five hours in a tense atmosphere.
And when Republican elected official Elise Stefanik asked whether “calling for genocide against the Jews violates Harvard's harassment rules, yes or no?”, Claudine Gay replied, “It can, depending on the context,” adding then add: “If it is directed against a person.” »
“When speech becomes action, it can become harassment,” Elizabeth Magill said in response to the same question. “It's a decision that depends on the context.” Their reactions, which went viral, even sparked an outcry from the White House, whose spokesman Andrew Bates said it was “unbelievable that this is being said: calls for genocide are outrageous.” .
In the past few days, more than 70 parliamentarians, including two Democrats, as well as former students and renowned donors have called for Claudine Gay's departure. However, the president received the support of the education community and remained in office in mid-December.
Harvard University's governing body, which accepted his resignation on Tuesday, praised his “remarkable resilience in the face of persistent and deeply personal attacks.”
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