‘Racist, vicious’: academics decry rightwing attacks on Claudine Gay

On Tuesday afternoon, Claudine Gay resigned from her post as president of Harvard University, making her six-month tenure the shortest in university history. In the aftermath of her departure from the position, many argued that the aggressive nature of the campaign against her was motivated not by questions about her academic integrity or about her response to campus controversy, but by her race.

Pressure on Gay to resign grew following her 5 December congressional testimony, where she, along with the presidents of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania, answered questions regarding allegations of on-campus antisemitism related to the Israel-Gaza war. Shortly thereafter, plagiarism allegations published on conservative website the Washington Free Beacon mounted against Gay, ultimately leading to her resignation.

Janai Nelson, the president and direct-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Attacks against Claudine Gay have been unrelenting & the biases unmasked. Her resignation on the heels of [UPenn president] Liz Magill’s set dangerous precedent in the academy for political witch hunts. The project isn’t to thwart hate but to foment it thru vicious takedowns. This protects no one.”

Ibram X Kendi, the founder of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, wrote: “Racist mobs won’t stop until they topple all Black people from positions of power and influence who are not reinforcing the structure of racism. What these racist mobs are doing should be obvious to any reporter who cares about truth or justice as opposed to conflicts and clicks.”

In her resignation letter, Gay acknowledged the racism she experienced following her congressional testimony. And though she issued additional