Former Harvard pres Claudine Gay receives ‘Leadership and Courage’ award despite controversy-plagued tenure

Claudine Gay, the former president of Harvard University, was recently given a “Leadership and Courage” award despite her controversial response to anti-Semitism and the plagiarism allegations that surrounded her time in Harvard’s leadership.

The Harvard Black Alumni Society granted the award to the former Harvard president on Sept. 28 at a gathering of the school’s black alumni. 

Harvard Black Alumni Society President Monica M. Clark praised Gay and said: “This reunion — all these people who were expressing all this support for her — they were all there. Celebrating her, and clapping for her, and cheering her on.”

One alumnus, Thomas G. Stewart, said: “She’s humble, she’s smart, she’s — fortunately — someone that still is affiliated with the University, and has pledged her support to it to her dying day.”

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“She’s in good spirits, and folks should know that,” Stewart added.

Claudine Gay resigned on Jan. 2 following her controversial congressional testimony, during which she failed to unequivocally state that she would condemn rhetoric “calling for the genocide of Jews.”

Gay was asked at the hearing: “At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?” Gay responded: “It can be, depending on the context.”

“I got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures,” Gay told The Harvard Crimson at the time. “What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged.”

Gay was plagued by a controversy regarding her allegedly repeated plagiarism as well. 

The former president was accused of committing plagiarism almost 50 times, and later acknowledged that she had “made mistakes,” but still tried to justify herself by claiming she was only guilty of “citation errors.” 

[RELATED: PROF. JENKINS: Plagiarism is still wrong]

“I have never misrepresented my research findings, nor have I ever claimed credit for the research of others. Moreover, the citation errors should not obscure a fundamental truth: I proudly stand by my work and its impact on the field,” she wrote in a New York Times op-ed. 

“My critics found instances in my academic writings where some material duplicated other scholars’ language, without proper attribution,” she continued. “When I learned of these errors, I promptly requested corrections from the journals in which the flagged articles were published, consistent with how I have seen similar faculty cases handled at Harvard.”

Gay also accused her critics of racism, saying they “recycled tired racial stereotypes about Black talent and temperament.”

Campus Reform has contacted Harvard University and Claudine Gay for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.