Harvard President Claudine Homosexual will stay chief of the celebrated Ivy League faculty following her comments last week at a congressional listening to on antisemitism, the college’s highest governing physique introduced Tuesday.
“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 Harvard Company mentioned in a press release following its assembly Monday.
Solely months into her management, Homosexual got here underneath intense scrutiny following the listening to wherein she and two of her friends struggled to reply questions on campus antisemitism. Their tutorial responses provoked backlash from Republican opponents, together with alumni and donors who say the college leaders are failing to face up for Jewish college students on their campuses. Hedge fund supervisor and alumnus Invoice Ackman has spearheaded a campaign for Homosexual’s ouster, saying Homosexual has performed extra injury to Harvard’s status than anybody in its historical past.
At subject was a line of questioning that requested whether or not calling for the genocide of Jews would violate the colleges’ code of conduct. At the hearing, Homosexual mentioned it relied on the context, including that when “speech crosses into conduct, that violates our policies.”
Some lawmakers and donors to the the college had known as for Homosexual to step down, following the resignation of Liz Magill as president of the College of Pennsylvania on Saturday.
The Harvard Crimson scholar newspaper first reported Tuesday that Homosexual, who turned Harvard’s first Black president in July, would stay in workplace with the help of the Harvard Company following the conclusion of the board’s assembly. It cited an unnamed supply accustomed to the choice.
A petition signed by greater than 600 school members had asked the school’s governing body to maintain Homosexual in cost and resist bowing to political stress.
“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,” the company’s assertion mentioned. “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.”
In an interview with The Crimson final week, Homosexual mentioned she obtained caught up in a heated exchange at the House committee hearing and didn’t correctly denounce threats of violence in opposition to Jewish college students.
“What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged,” Homosexual mentioned.
Testimony from Gay and Magill drew intense nationwide backlash, as did related responses from the president of MIT, who additionally testified earlier than the Republican-led Home Schooling and Workforce Committee.
U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-New York, a committee member who repeatedly requested the college presidents whether or not “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate the faculties’ guidelines, voiced her displeasure on X, the social media platform, in regards to the determination supporting Homosexual.
“There have been absolutely no updates to (Harvard’s) code of conduct to condemn the calls for genocide of Jews and protect Jewish students on campus,” she mentioned. “The only update to Harvard’s code of conduct is to allow plagiarists as president.”
The company addressed allegations of plagiarism in opposition to Homosexual, saying that Harvard turned conscious of them in late October concerning three articles she had written. It initiated an impartial overview at Homosexual’s request.
The company reviewed the outcomes on Saturday, “which revealed a few instances of inadequate citation” and located no violation of Harvard’s requirements for analysis misconduct, it mentioned. Homosexual is proactively requesting 4 corrections in two articles to insert citations and citation marks that had been omitted from the unique publications, the assertion mentioned.
