12th December, 2023
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
Harvard University says it unanimously stands with President Claudine Gay over her travail as some critics are calling for her sack.
At a consequential December 5 hearing before a House committee, Gay struggled to answer questions about whether calls for genocide against Jews would violate Harvard’s code of conduct.
The CNN reports that she and other university presidents failed to explicitly say calls for genocide of Jewish people constituted bullying and harassment on campus.
The exchanges went viral and prompted a flurry of business leaders, donors and politicians to demand Gay, Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth step down.
However, Harvard Corporation, the university’s top governance board, in a statement said the school reaffirmed its support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University.
“Our extensive deliberations affirm 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.
“So many people have suffered tremendous damage and pain because of Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack, and the University’s initial statement should have been an immediate, direct, and unequivocal condemnation.
“Calls for genocide are despicable and contrary to fundamental human values. President Gay has apologized for how she handled her congressional testimony and has committed to redoubling the University’s fight against antisemitism,” the statement said.
The school said with regard to President Gay’s academic writings, the University became aware in late October of allegations regarding three articles.
It stated that at Gay’s request, the Fellows promptly initiated an independent review by distinguished political scientists and conducted a review of her published work.
“On December 9, the Fellows reviewed the results, which revealed a few instances of inadequate citation. While the analysis found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications,” it added.
According to the Harvard Corporation, in this tumultuous and difficult time, “we unanimously stand in support of President Gay. At Harvard, we champion open discourse and academic freedom, and we are united in our strong belief that calls for violence against our students and disruptions of the classroom experience will not be tolerated.
“Harvard’s mission is advancing knowledge, research, and discovery that will help address deep societal issues and promote constructive discourse, and we are confident that President Gay will lead Harvard forward toward accomplishing this vital work.”