Claudine Gay, Harvard’s former president, officially stepped down on January 2nd, 2024. Gay, whose term lasted 6 months and 2 days, the shortest of all Harvard presidents, resigned due to criticism concerning how she handled antisemitism on the campus and accusations of plagiarism in her academic work.
Harvard faced scrutiny for its response to the October 7th Hamas-Israeli conflict. The university did not address the conflict for more than two days, at which point a letter penned by dozens of student groups blaming the bloodshed on Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians had gone viral. Claudine Gay did not say anything about said letter, and decided she would rely on the university deans, according to Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi, causing some Jewish members of Harvard to “feel unsafe to study and identify in the Harvard community.”
A question raised by some is: is it the president of Harvard’s job to address this? Mr. Luckett (Teacher), addressed the issue, saying, “[The] president of a University has the responsibility to hold their school to a specific standard regardless of where their personal standard for their school may be. There should be a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech on campuses.”
In addition to the antisemitism and hate speech allegations, concerns of plagiarism were raised. The claims involve Gay’s 1997 dissertation, “The Effect of Minority Districts and Minority Representation on Political Participation in California,” which was published in 2001 by the Public Policy Institute of California and had a passage about the Voting Rights Act which was close to a description in a 1999 book by David Canon. Gay also had instances of improper citations found in her scholarship, but they “did not violate Harvard’s standards for research misconduct”, according to the Harvard Crimson.
Were these plagiarism concerns enough to make one resign? There are many mixed opinions on this. While she is an academic officer and plagiarism concerns are serious, they are still being investigated. Mrs. Stevens (Teacher) states, “No, all accusations need to be proven 100% before any formal action should be taken. The accusation could be false, and the individual accused should have the opportunity to defend themselves.” This is the opinion of many on this case, especially since the alleged plagiarism came from Gay’s twenty-plus year-old dissertation, causing people to question whether they are vulnerable because anyone can find information from their past in a matter of minutes.
“If you live your life integrity and honestly, it should not be a big deal that others have access to your history,” Mrs. Stevens replied, “but as humans, we all make mistakes and now they are instantly shared. So yes, you are vulnerable when others have access to all your moments from prior years or just an hour ago.”
“If someone wants to pursue a career in the professional world,” Mr. Luckett stated, “they need to make sure that there isn’t anything in their social media that can be used as damaging information.” Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s former provost and chief academic officer, will now serve as interim president of Harvard.
