Claudine Gay’s resignation from Harvard was necessary but insufficient
The bungling of campus antisemitism is not about one person’s failures, but broader moral rot at our nation’s universities
A “Kidnapped” poster on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Dec. 12. Photo by Mel Musto/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Peter Fox January 2, 2024
Claudine Gay, who just months ago became the first Black woman to serve as president of Harvard, resigned today following outrage over recent congressional testimony on the university’s campus antisemitism policies.
In a viral moment, Gay and two other university presidents said that whether or not calls for genocide against Jews violate university policies “depends on the context.” The line has since become an internet meme.
The situation, like much of life, is more complex than the loudest voices online make it seem. Gay, and the other university presidents who testified before Congress, did try to skirt around the issue. The campaign to hold her accountable was also hijacked by extremists with repugnant views.
Gay was the only university president who testified that day to condemn calls for genocide against Jews as “personally abhorrent” and “at odds with the values of Harvard.” She and her colleagues are, as one Harvard student critical of her testimony recently put it in the Forward, “probably not antisemites.”
But hiding behind spurious legalese at all was a cowardly escape and led to her undoing, as it did for University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill.
When a university president fails morally and academically, even by mistake, it’s expected that there will be an outcry. That’s not bigoted. That’s simply life.
But the fact that she and others felt the need to do so in the first place points to problems that well predate any of their tenures.
Academic integrity matters more than Jewish students
Prestige institutions can rationalize hate speech as a form of intellectual debate, but they can’t risk discrediting their reputation or academic integrity by allowing plagiarism to slide.
As Vox writer Zach Beauchamp put it, “it doesn’t matter” that right-wing agitators “caught her. Nor does it matter that the scrutiny on her work came as a result of a specious political stunt by Elise Stefanik. The fact appears to be that she plagiarized. And in academia, that’s a mortal sin.”
Sadly, what is not, in 2023, is bigotry against Jews.
Jewish students on U.S. campuses are facing a surge of antisemitism amplified by the war between Israel and Hamas, fueled by those who have become infected with toxic beliefs about Jews in the name of justice. A recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found two-thirds of those 18-24 in America believe that Jews are a class of oppressors. The same poll found that 50% of registered 18-to-24-year-old voters surveyed support Hamas more than Israel in the current war.
It’s an American tragedy. And it’s a microcosm of a much larger problem at elite universities today.
Perhaps Gay and her colleagues thought they could placate these students, and avoid angering a growing contingent that views Jews with suspicion and even animus. Clearly condemning campus antisemitism and genocidal slogans like “from the river to the sea” would’ve been seen as her feeding into a pro-Israel narrative.
The issue of antisemitism, and of dismissing Jewish students’ concerns, existed long before her. But that doesn’t make her response (or lack thereof) any more correct. She fell prey to the ecosystem she was part of and instead of showing courage, she fizzled away with cowardice.
The issues we’re seeing are further compounded by the hypocrisy among many who are criticizing Gay’s resignation.
Academics and activists have popularized phrases like “words are violence” and “silence is violence.” And yet, when the target of harassment is Jewish students, all of that is disregarded and even rationalized away.
Others are celebrating Gay’s resignation as a win against “wokeness.” This, too, is the wrong take. There are no winners in this saga, only sadness.
It’s sad that the university presidents couldn’t acknowledge that calls for genocide against Jews violate campus code of conduct in front of Congress.
It’s sad that Gay couldn’t clarify her remarks when she had the chance to do so.
It’s sad that she couldn’t properly acknowledge her mistake when the news of this exchange went viral.
It’s sad that this incident got hijacked by right-wing extremists.
It’s sad that every conversation about Jews or antisemitism gets exploited by bad actors.
It’s sad that this has become a race issue.
It’s sad that this will almost certainly fuel conspiracy theories about “Jewish money.”
It’s all sad. And pathetic.
Not everything is a culture war. Not everything can be reduced to race and intersecting identities, as some commentators have claimed. If you fail to speak up for Jewish students on your campus and are found to have committed numerous acts of plagiarism, you should resign.
In the end, this incident is not about one person’s failures, but the broader issue of institutional and moral decay. How we respond to these deeper issues, and heal the brokenness in our society, is on all of us.
To contact the author, email opinion@forward.com.
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