Hundreds of Harvard faculty sign letter supporting president after UPenn head resigns

Calls are growing for Claudine Gay to resign after UPenn President Liz Magill stepped down over the weekend

Hundreds of Harvard University faculty members have signed a letter in support of president Claudine Gay as pressure grows for her to resign following last week’s controversial antisemitism congressional hearing.

Ms Gay, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and MIT president Sally Kornbluth all appeared in front of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce last week to testify about their responses to alleged incidents of antisemitism on their college campuses since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

All three university presidents have faced backlash for what critics described as their “inaction” over alleged antisemitism on campus following the 7 October surprise attack by Hamas on Israel – which saw 1,400 Israelis killed.

Criticism of the three grew following their testimony, where they failed to explicitly say that calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their colleges’ harassment and bullying codes.

Following the hearing, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a letter to the governing boards of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT urging them to remove their university leaders.

Ms Magill became the first of the presidents to resign over the weekend, announcing her departure and apologising for her remarks after UPenn alum and Wall Street CEO Ross Stevens threatened to strip the university of a $100m donation if she did not step down.

Hundreds of Harvard faculty have signed a letter in support of University president Claudine Gay as pressure grows for her to resign (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Republican Representaive Elise Stefanik of New York, who serves on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, responded to her exit by calling for Ms Gay and Ms Kornbluth to follow.

“One down. Two to go,” she wrote on X.

“In the case of @Harvard, President Gay was asked by me 17x whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard’s code of conduct. She spoke her truth 17x. And the world heard,” she added.

While pressure is now growing on Ms Gay to resign, the university leader is also facing a wave of support from some in the college community.

Now, more than 300 Harvard faculty members have signed a letter calling on the administration not to remove Ms Gay as president because “defending a culture of free inquiry in our diverse community cannot proceed if we let its shape be dictated by outside forces”.

“We, the undersigned faculty, urge you in the strongest possible terms to defend the independence of the university and to resist political pressures that are at odds with Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom, including calls for the removal of President Claudine Gay,” the petition reads.

Professor Ryan Enos, who signed the letter, told The Boston Globe that “there is agreement [among faculty] that it’s wrong to have politicians and alumni pressuring who should be the president of the university”.

However, major donors remain unconvinced, with Harvard alum and billionaire hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman demanding that Ms Gay “resign in disgrace”.

“As a result of President Gay’s failure to enforce Harvard’s own rules, Jewish students, faculty and others are fearful for their own safety as even the physical abuse of students remains unpunished,” Mr Ackman wrote in an open letter to Harvard’s governing board on Sunday.

“Knowing what we know now, would Harvard consider Claudine Gay for the position? The answer is definitively “No.” With this simple thought experiment, the board’s decision on President Gay could not be more straightforward.”

UPenn president Liz Magill resigned over the weekend (AP)

Mr Ackman has been one of Ms Gay’s loudest critics since she became Harvard’s first Black president in July.

He previously questioned the 53-year-old’s academic integrity and values, posting content on social media that implies she was hired to fulfil diversity metrics.

The ongoing scandal comes as Harvard is among several academic institutions to come under fire over alleged antisemitism on its campus.

On the same day as the 7 October attacks on Israel, a group of 33 student organisations, led by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, released a now-deleted statement on social media arguing that Israel’s “apartheid regime” had created the impetus for the war.

The letter prompted furious backlash, with Harvard professors and alumni calling on the university’s leadership to condemn the letter as well as Hamas.

Mr Ackman also called for the signators of the letter to be blacklisted from top Wall Street firms – a move he came under fire for after a truck appeared near the Harvard campus, circling the university and displaying photos of Harvard students and organisations allegedly linked to the original statement.

Ms Gay issued a statement three days after the letter was published condemning the attacks and distancing the university’s leadership from the letter.

Meanwhile, in a speech at Harvard’s Jewish student organisation in late October, she announced that she had assembled an advisory group of “faculty, staff, alumni, and religious leaders from the Jewish community” who “will help us to think expansively and concretely about all the ways that antisemitism shows up on our campus and in our campus culture”.

Although this has not made Ms Gay less susceptible to criticism, the Harvard Corporation and the school’s Board of Overseers have so far declined to remove her as president following a scheduled meeting on Sunday.

Meanwhile, UPenn’s Ms Magill had been under fire for months prior to her resignation – even before the Israel-Hamas war.

A number of megadonors including Jon Huntsman Jr and Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan had been calling for her resignation since September, vowing to halt their donations to the university after the college hosted a Palestine Writes Literary Festival to which polarising figures such as Professor Marc Lamont Hill were invited.

Billionaire Bill Ackman has been one of the biggest critics of the three women (Patrick McMullan via Getty Image)

Mr Hill was ousted from CNN in 2018 after calling for an end to what he said was Israel’s “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians and supporting a “free Palestine from the river to the sea”.

Following the event, more than 4,000 people signed an open letter to Ms Magill, saying that “platforming of outright antisemitism without denunciation from the university is unacceptable”.

Organisers of the festival have since denied that it embraced antisemitism.

At the time, the university disavowed the event, but supported its right for it to be held on campus, saying in a statement that “we unequivocally – and emphatically – condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values”.

But in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel, many megadonors argued that the university’s response was not enough and urged fellow UPenn alumni to “close their checkbooks” until the institution’s leadership resigned.

The crisis culminated over the weekend with Ms Magill’s dramatic resignation following threats by donors to pull $100m in funding.

Questions now remain as to whether Ms Gay and Ms Kornbluth will follow in Ms Magill’s footsteps and step down from the helm of their universities.