Harvard chief’s shock exit exposes decade-spanning fractures

“It should be a moment for Harvard to take stock, figure out how we got into this trouble, and make changes to restore its reputation,” said Steven Pinker, a Harvard professor of psychology and well-known author. “Now is the time for Harvard to draw a line between the future and implement reforms for the benefit of itself and higher education in general.”

Harvard Corp. said it accepted Gay’s resignation with sorrow and pointedly called out the “repugnant and in some cases racist vitriol” directed at her. The now 11-member board, led by former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, named Provost Alan Garber to serve as interim president and said it’s embarking on a search for a new leader just over a year after settling on Gay, who beat out 600 other candidates.

The university’s reputation took a beating when it was slow to condemn more than 30 student groups who blamed the Hamas attack solely on Israel. Within days, Larry Summers, a former Harvard president, said he was “sickened” by the university’s lack of response and contrasted its silence with Gay’s powerful writing about the killing of George Floyd in 2020, when she was dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Gay sought to quell the controversy, but it escalated as protests proliferated and reports of antisemitic incidents were highlighted on social media. Donors such as billionaires Idan Ofer and Leslie Wexner halted support, while US Senator Mitt Romney accused the university of ignoring the safety of Jewish students.

Congressional Uproar

The furor intensified when Gay appeared before Congress on Dec. 5 to testify about antisemitism on US campuses. Replying to questioning by Representative Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, Gay and her counterparts at the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave widely derided testimony in which they failed to condemn calls for genocide against Jews as a violation of university policy.

Penn President Liz Magill stepped down days later. Gay faced a wave of calls to resign as well, including from Stefanik, investor Bill Ackman and other Harvard alumni.

Professor Avi Loeb, a world-renowned astronomer who’s been at Harvard since 1993, said he was horrified by Gay’s testimony. Loeb, who grew up in Israel and lost 65 members of his father’s family to the Holocaust, said he was worried by the long-term impact on the school, including its ability to raise money from donors and work with Washington legislators.

“The consequences are obvious,” he said before she resigned.

Faculty Support

But 700 other faculty members, many of them from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, vocalized their support for Gay in the wake of the hearing.

They signed a petition defending “the independence of the university” and urged its leadership “to resist political pressures that are at odds with Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom.”

One of the signatories was Professor Suzanne Blier, who had endorsed Gay to become president.

“President Gay stepping down won’t stop the demoralizing national downturn in civility,” said Blier, a professor of fine arts and of African and African American Studies. “We need calm and reasoned discussion to advance respect and mutual trust — not more division.”

Like some of Gay’s other supporters, Blier had been part of a group that years earlier had sought to remove Summers from Harvard’s top job. He stepped down almost 18 years ago after clashing with faculty, including over remarks he made about women’s aptitude for science and engineering.

DEI Focus

A daughter of Haitian immigrants, Gay was selected in 2022 as the much heralded successor of Lawrence Bacow. Her research as a political scientist often focused on race and one of the hallmarks of her leadership was promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion policies. She took the reins at Harvard in mid-2023, days after the US Supreme Court struck down race as a factor in undergraduate admissions.

“When I became president, I considered myself particularly blessed by the opportunity to serve people from around the world who saw in my presidency a vision of Harvard that affirmed their sense of belonging—their sense that Harvard welcomes people of talent and promise, from every background imaginable, to learn from and grow with one another,” Gay said in her resignation letter. She will remain on the Harvard faculty.

DEI though has long been a target of conservative lawmakers and pundits. After the Congressional hearing, those attacks intensified, including from Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Ackman, who has supported Democrats, increasingly focused his criticisms of Harvard on the diversity initiatives, suggesting that Gay’s appointment resulted from the effort.

One of his former professors called Ackman’s comments about Gay’s selection a “dog whistle” against Black women. Ackman rejected that assertion.

In a lengthy post on X after Gay announced her resignation, Ackman said he’s always supported “diversity in its broadest form,” including race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic background, sexual identity, viewpoints and politics. But he said DEI has become “a political advocacy movement on behalf of certain groups that are deemed oppressed.”

Ackman went on to say that Pritzker and other Harvard Corp. board members should resign.

Harvard Corp. said Gay had been the recipient of “repugnant and in some cases racist vitriol” through emails and phone calls.

“These last weeks have helped make clear the work we need to do” to “combat bias and hate in all its forms, to create a learning environment in which we respect each other’s dignity and treat one another with compassion, and to affirm our enduring commitment to open inquiry and free expression in the pursuit of truth,” Gay wrote in her letter.

Ultimately Gay was toppled by growing allegations of plagiarism in her scholarship, including fresh allegations published this week in the Washington Free Beacon. A House Committee has asked Harvard to respond to questions about its academic integrity standards and how it handled claims against Gay.

“We should hold everyone to the highest standards and Harvard should have scholars of the highest level as members of the faculty and as leaders of the university,” David Weitz, a physics professor who has been at Harvard since 1999, said before Gay announced her departure. “How can I tell my students not to plagiarize? How can you hold different standards? I just don’t see it.”

The university’s board, which had backed Gay less than a month ago, said it would stand by its “core values of excellence, inclusiveness, and free inquiry and expression.”

But moving forward won’t be easy. Donors have severed ties and in one worrying sign early-admission applications dropped 17%.

Congress also continues to apply pressure. In addition to the plagiarism inquiry, the committee that invited Gay to testify is still investigating antisemitism on campuses. Stefanik, who took a victory lap after Gay’s resignation, said it’s “just the beginning of a reckoning.”

Pinker has proposed adopting a clear policy on academic freedom, promoting a wide range of viewpoints and embracing institutional neutrality by avoiding pronouncements on events of the day.

“It’s not just about Harvard, but about higher education and institutions in general,” Pinker said.