Harvard interim president rededicates university to 'free inquiry and expression' after Gay's resignation
Harvard's Interim President Alan Garber rededicated the school to "free inquiry and expression" following the resignation of Claudine Gay.
Harvard University Interim President Alan Garber rededicated the school to “free inquiry and expression” following the resignation of Claudine Gay.
Garber made the comments in a letter to the Cambridge, Massachusetts campus community on Jan. 8 titled “Our Work Together.”
”We have been through an extraordinarily painful and disorienting time for Harvard. Since I first arrived here as an undergraduate in 1973, I cannot recall a period of comparable tension on our campus and across our community. That tension has been exacerbated by concerns about how we address and combat antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of bias; safeguard free expression; and foster a climate of mutual understanding,” Garber wrote. “We have been subjected to an unrelenting focus on fault lines that divide us, which has tested the ties that bind us as a community devoted to learning from one another.”
”Rededicating ourselves to free inquiry and expression, in a climate of inclusion and a spirit of mutual respect, has never mattered more,” Garber said.
Gay resigned on Jan. 2 following allegations of plagiarism earlier in her career, as well as criticism stemming from a December 2023 congressional hearing on anti-Semitism she attended.
When asked during the hearing by Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., if calls for the genocide of Jews would violate Harvard’s bullying and harassment policies, Gay failed to give a clear answer.
”It can be, depending on the context,” Gay responded.
Gay would go on to apologize for her response several times.
In a New York Times op-ed written after resigning, Gay said “Yes, I made mistakes.”
”In my initial response to the atrocities of Oct. 7, I should have stated more forcefully what all people of good conscience know: Hamas is a terrorist organization that seeks to eradicate the Jewish state,” Gay said. “And at a congressional hearing last month, I fell into a well-laid trap. I neglected to clearly articulate that calls for the genocide of Jewish people are abhorrent and unacceptable and that I would use every tool at my disposal to protect students from that kind of hate.”
