Embattled Harvard President Claudine Gay cleared a hurdle to keeping her job after the Harvard Corporation board issued a statement unanimously affirming its support for her amid backlash over her response at a congressional hearing to a question about the “genocide of Jews.”
“As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University,” the Harvard Corporation said in a statement to the university community on Monday. “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.”
The board added, “In this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay.”
Gay had faced calls to resign after she and the leaders of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology engaged in four hours of tense testimony in front of the Republican-led House Education Committee last week. The Harvard president testified alongside MIT’s Sally Kornbluth and Liz Magill, who resigned from her role at the University of Pennsylvania following backlash to her testimony, including a donor saying they were withdrawing a $100 million donation.
Last week’s hearing gave Republicans an opportunity to express frustration with the college presidents for not doing enough to aggressively condemn those on their campuses who the members said foster antisemitism. Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania are among the schools being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for complaints of antisemitism and Islamophobic discrimination on campus.
Several members of the House have called for expulsions, firings and disciplinary action on campuses amid pro-Palestinian protests where students have used rhetoric that has been tied to antisemitism, as well as incidents such as vandalism on Hillel buildings and threatening emails to Jewish faculty.
Various lawmakers, including Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., asked for “action items,” not “lip service,” during the hearing and pushed for students to be expelled for antisemitic speech.
“Will the students who are intimidating Jewish students just because they’re Jewish be expelled?” she asked.
The university presidents tried to explain that there are processes in place to determine whether students have violated school policies and that they have strong commitments to respecting students’ different viewpoints on this complex issue.
“We do not sanction individuals for their political views or their speech. When that speech crosses into conduct that violates our behavior-based policies, bullying, harassment and intimidation, we take action,” Gay said.
Gay, citing privacy concerns, would not provide details on specific cases.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett, Sarah Beth Hensley, Selina Wang and Lauren Peller contributed to this report.
Source: abc news
