Harvard University's president remained in office on Tuesday despite “political pressure” in the United States and Israel after her comments about fighting anti-Semitism on the campus rocked by the deadly conflict in Gaza were seen as ambiguous.
• Also read: Harvard president harshly criticized after congressional hearing on anti-Semitism
• Also read: The Israel-Hamas conflict is plunging major American universities into a political crisis
“Today, as members of the Corporation of Harvard, we reaffirm our support for the continuation of President (Claudine) Gay’s leadership mandate,” said the highest authority of the prestigious university, which was founded 368 years ago in Cambridge, Greater Boston.
After a special board meeting Monday night, the board expressed “confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our (university) community address the very serious societal issues we face.”
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Claudine Gay, 53, born in New York to a family of Haitian immigrants, is a political science professor who became the first black president of Harvard University in July.
passions
Since this weekend, nearly 700 professors have launched a petition against demands and “political pressure” aimed at securing the resignation of Claudine Gay, who has been accused of mishandling the problems of anti-Semitism on campus.
Rabbi and leader of the Jewish student group Harvard Hillel, Getzel Davis, responded to Claudine Gay's reservation: “The most important thing for Jewish students at Harvard is that the culture is changing and that we have an administration that supports them, that names them, that denounces them and.” fights against anti-Semitism wherever it occurs.
Since Hamas's bloody attack in Israel on October 7, followed by deadly retaliation by the Israeli army in Gaza, the conflict has ignited passions at prestigious universities in the US, such as Harvard.
On Tuesday, calm reigned on the historic campus in the heart of Cambridge, a small town with a British colonial feel, a far cry from the tension that surrounded pro-Palestinian demonstrations in October.
The few students who agreed to respond to AFP expressed the wish that an institution as prestigious as Harvard should remain neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, just like the United States: “Our country should distance itself from the conflicts of other countries stay away,” said Daniel Awgchew, 20 years old.
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At an “institution” like Harvard “we should be held to high standards when it comes to the things we should say and do.” Of course, that represents considerable pressure,” emphasized Marisa Gann, 19 years old.
Tad Elmer, a Cambridge pensioner, “believes that universities should not be politicised”.
Rich donors and voices in the Republican and Democratic camps have denounced an outbreak of anti-Semitic incidents on campus and criticized a lackluster response from university presidents, amid recurring criticism from conservatives of American campuses that “they judge too.” . far left.
“Context”
For political science professor Ryan Enos, one of the 700 signatories of the letter of support, “conservatives want to end free speech on campus.” “And they have already had some success in silencing pro-Palestinian voices on campus,” he added AFP added.
On Tuesday, December 5, Claudine Gay and her colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Elizabeth Magill and Sally Kornbluth, answered questions from elected officials and representatives in a tense atmosphere for five hours Room.
Among them was Republican Elise Stefanik, who compared pro-Palestinian students' calls for an “intifada” to a call for “genocide of Jews in Israel and around the world.”
When Ms. Stefanik asked whether “calling for genocide against the Jews violates Harvard University's harassment policy, yes or no?” Ms. Gay replied, “Maybe, depending on the context,” and then added, “If so. “directed against a person.”
The controversy sparked by those comments forced Elizabeth Magill to resign as UPenn's president on Saturday, and 70 elected officials, mostly Republicans, called for Ms. Gay's resignation.
“President Gay apologized for the way she testified before Congress and pledged to redouble the university’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism,” the Harvard Corporation said Tuesday.
In Israel, a military ally of the United States, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday denounced an “outbreak of anti-Semitism on American campuses” that the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial likened to a “cancer.”