Under intense pressure over her responses at a congressional hearing about antisemitism, Harvard President Claudine Gay has received the backing of her school’s governing board to stay on as the university’s leader.
“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 Corporation said in a statement Tuesday morning.
At the Dec. 5 hearing before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Gay — along with Sally Kornbluth and Liz Magill, the presidents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, respectively — were pressed by lawmakers on whether calling for genocide against Jews was against their university’s code of conduct.
Their answers largely hewed to similar lines: that the code of conduct is violated when that speech crosses into conduct. An uproar ensued over their testimony, and calls for their ouster grew.
Magill resigned as Penn’s president on Saturday evening.
Gay, meanwhile, received support from hundreds of Harvard faculty members and the executive committee of the university’s alumni association. In its letter affirming their support for Gay, the Harvard Corporation wrote: “President Gay has apologized for how she handled her congressional testimony and has committed to redoubling the University’s fight against antisemitism.”