- Before Claudine Gay stepped down as Harvard’s president, she had received a torrent of threats.
- The death threats and racist attacks led to Gay’s home being watched by police 24/7, per The Times.
- Gay resigned following her widely criticized congressional testimony and allegations of plagiarism.
Claudine Gay’s departure from the Harvard presidency was the result of a weekslong campaign against her leadership, first for her appearance before a now-infamous congressional panel on campus antisemitism and then for allegations of plagiarism.
Gay, who last year became the first Black president in Harvard’s nearly 400-year history, had retained the support of the powerful Harvard Corporation after her widely-criticized congressional testimony. Gay apologized for her remarks, stating that she had gotten tangled in an exchange regarding “policies and procedures” and should have more forcefully denounced threats of violence against Jewish students in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.
But within two weeks of a Dec. 12 statement where the corporation expressed their continued backing of Gay, she began to lose the confidence of some members of the board, according to The New York Times.
Throughout the ordeal, she received a torrent of death threats, racist notes, and phone calls which only intensified as December progressed, according to The Times. Gay, who had only recently moved into the Harvard president’s official residence, would pick up the phone only to be met with racial slurs, per the report.
The Times also reported that Gay’s residence was being watched 24 hours a day.
Gay stepped down from the Harvard presidency on Jan. 2, ending what was the shortest tenure in the university’s history.
“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,” she wrote to the Harvard community.
In her statement, Gay also called out not only critics of her prior work but also the personal racist attacks that had been lobbed at her.
“Amidst all of this, it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor —two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus,” she wrote.
Gay’s exit from leadership elicited intense reactions across the public sphere, and for many professors in Cambridge, her resignation was the culmination of what they said was a targeted conservative campaign. Some professors also expressed concern about the independence of universities.
“I think it sends a message to the public that universities in the United States can be bullied and attacked for political reasons,” Government professor Ryan D. Enos told The Harvard Crimson. “This was the university caving to a mob.”
