Top Harvard body expected to keep president Claudine Gay amid antisemitism outcry

Harvard President Dr. Claudine Gay is expected to keep her position following a meeting yesterday of the Harvard Corporation, the university’s highest governing body, in the wake of the outcry over her comments at a congressional hearing about antisemitism on campuses amid the Israel-Hamas war, the Harvard Crimson reports.

Citing a source familiar with the body’s decision, the report says the announcement will be made later today.

The Corporation has not commented until now on the scandal that saw Gay face calls from lawmakers and donors to step down.

Gay was one of three Ivy League university presidents to speak before Congress last week alongside counterparts Sally Kornbluth, president of MIT, and Liz Magill, the now-former president of the University of Pennsylvania. They each face fierce backlash for their evasive responses to Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik’s questioning in which thy refused to explicitly say that calls for genocide of Jewish people violate campus rules on harassment.

A petition this week signed by more than 600 faculty members asks the school’s governing body to resist political pressures “that are at odds with Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom” and to allow Gay to continue to lead the school.

Gay, a scholar of politics and African American studies who became Harvard’s first Black president in July, has come under intense scrutiny only months into her leadership following the hearing.