Harvard says Gay will remain president despite $1 billion loss following anti-Semitism debacle

Harvard University has apparently decided President Claudine Gay will maintain her job at the prestigious institution. The development comes after the president appeared before Congress to give account for the apparent increase in anti-Semitic behavior on campus.

The Ivy League university has reportedly lost more than $1 billion in donations since Gay's congressional testimony about anti-Semitism, according to the New York Post. Nevertheless, the Harvard Corporation — the university's highest governing group — decided that it would make no changes to Gay's post as president.

The decision was made on Tuesday after Gay and university leaders held long talks about the situation.

“As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University. Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing,” the Harvard Corporation said in a statement.

The Harvard Crimson — the university's student-run newspaper — reported that the university's decision to allow Gay to stay on as president comes as University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill resigned on Saturday following testimony before Congress.

It appears Gay received an immense amount of support following her congressional hearing. More than 700 faculty members signed a letter to the Harvard Corporation on Monday, insisting that Gay retain her position at the university. Additionally, the Harvard Alumni Association Executive Committee expressed uncontested support for Gay in a letter of its own.

The Harvard Corporation conceded that the university should have released an "immediate, direct and unequivocal condemnation" of Hamas' slaughter of 1,200 Israelis on October 7. It went on to say that "calls for genocide are despicable and contrary to fundamental human values," but this sentiment seems to fly in the face of Gay's seemingly anti-Semitic testimony last week.

“President Gay has apologized for how she handled her congressional testimony and has committed to redoubling the university’s fight against antisemitism," the group said.

However, it is unclear how Gay plans to make right her initial position.

The hearing involved Gay, Magill, and MIT President Sally A. Kornbluth, all of whom were asked to step down from their posts by more than 70 members of Congress following the hearing.

The Harvard Corporation apparently launched a separate investigation into accusations of plagiarism against Gay. The claim is that she plagiarized various portions of her 1997 Ph.D. thesis, which would be in violation of the institution's academic integrity policies.

The New York Post reported that the group discovered "a few instances of inadequate citation," adding that "while the analysis found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications.”

Despite the whirlwind of controversy surrounding Harvard's president, the Harvard Corporation has expressed its unanimous support for Gay.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!