Besieged Harvard President Claudine Gay is stepping down, she announced Tuesday afternoon.
“It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president,” Gay wrote in an open letter posted to the Harvard website.
“This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have looked forward to working with so many of you to advance the commitment to academic excellence that has propelled this great university across centuries. But, after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.”
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Gay’s six-month, two-day stint will mark the shortest tenure of any Harvard president in the university’s history. She has been under fire for an alleged plagiarism scandal, as well as for her remarks during a congressional hearing on antisemitism last month.
The school’s so-called corporation, known formally as the President and Fellows of Harvard College, issued a statement alongside Gay’s, announcing the interim appointment of Provost and Chief Academic Officer Alan Garber to the presidency. The search for a new president will begin “in due course,” the statement said.
“These past several months have seen Harvard and higher education face a series of sustained and unprecedented challenges,” the statement went on. “In the face of escalating controversy and conflict, President Gay and the Fellows have sought to be guided by the best interests of the institution whose future progress and well-being we are together committed to uphold Her own message conveying her intention to step down eloquently underscores what those who have worked with her have long known—her commitment to the institution and its mission is deep and selfless. It is with that overarching consideration in mind that we have accepted her resignation.”
Allegations of plagiarism have been leveled at nearly half of Gay’s 17 published works. Fresh plagiarism accusations emerged earlier on Tuesday, when The Washington Free Beacon published an unsigned complaint submitted to Harvard with six further examples of other people’s work Gay allegedly lifted without proper attribution.
A 2001 article by Gay, “The Effect of Minority Districts and Minority Representation on Political Participation in California,” contains “some of the most extreme and clear-cut cases of plagiarism yet,” according to the Free Beacon, a right-leaning outlet. In it, Gay allegedly used “nearly half a page of material verbatim” from University of Wisconsin political science Prof. David Canon.
Canon told the Free Beacon he was “not at all concerned about the passages,” saying, “This isn’t even close to an example of academic plagiarism.”
The other five new allegations concern a 1996 paper by Frank Gilliam, which the Free Beacon says Gay “repeatedly quote[d] without attribution, changing just a few words here or there.”
The initial plagiarism accusations were first surfaced last month by conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who said Gay plagiarized “multiple sections” of her 1997 Ph.D thesis. One of the authors Gay was accused of ripping off was her own thesis adviser, Prof. Gary King. At the time, King told The Daily Beast he did not believe Gay had plagiarized his work. Harvard also came out defending Gay, chalking the instances of alleged plagiarism up to minor attribution errors.
In Tuesday’s statement, the Harvard Corporation praised Gay for having “acknowledged missteps,” and said she “has shown remarkable resilience in the face of deeply personal and sustained attacks.”
“While some of this has played out in the public domain, much of it has taken the form of repugnant and in some cases racist vitriol directed at her through disgraceful emails and phone calls,” the statement said. “We condemn such attacks in the strongest possible terms.”
Calls for Gay to be ousted intensified after her testimony in front of a congressional panel on campus antisemitism—a performance widely described as disastrous. Appearing alongside the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and MIT, who were also roundly condemned for their answers, Gay stumbled badly under questioning by Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik.
When Stefanik asked Gay if calls on the Harvard campus for a Jewish genocide would violate the university’s code of conduct, Gay said it may or may not, “depending on the context.”
Billionaire hedge fund manager and Harvard alum Bill Ackman immediately demanded Gay be fired for neglecting the rights of Jewish students. Liz Magill, UPenn’s president, stepped down three weeks ago. On Tuesday, following Gay’s announcement, Ackman called for MIT President Sally Kornbluth to make it three-for-three, posting on X, formerly Twitter, “Et tu, Sally?”
In an email accompanying a copy of Gay’s letter and the trustees’ statement, a Harvard spokesman said, “Beyond this, we have no further comment.”
In her goodbye letter, Gay said she hopes her “brief presidency... will be seen as a moment of reawakening to the importance of striving to find our common humanity—and of not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education.”
