Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned from her position over allegation of plagiarism.
The resignation comes after weeks of criticism over her initial response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and early December comments at a House committee hearing that equivocated on whether calling for the genocide of Jewish people violated the campus code of conduct.
Gay, who made history as the first Black person to be president of the powerhouse university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in her resignation letter that she’d been subjected to personal threats and “racial animus.”
Her downfall comes after the university’s governing Harvard Corporation had initially backed her after the public relations disaster of the congressional testimony.
But the body did criticise the university’s initial response to the Hamas October 7 attacks that Israel said killed 1,200 people inside Israel and saw around 240 people taken hostage.
Israel’s offensive has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed at least 22,185 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
More than 70 lawmakers, including two Democrats, called for her resignation, while a number of high-profile Harvard alumni and donors also called for her departure.
Still, more than 700 Harvard faculty members had signed a letter supporting Gay and her job had appeared to be safe..