Ever since it was founded all the way back in 1636, Harvard University has maintained a reputation as one of the oldest, most expensive, but ultimately one of the finest universities in American history. Their acceptance rate is incredibly low, and their student debt is incredibly high, with their median federal loan debt among borrowers who complete their undergraduate degrees being at a whopping $14,000. Harvard University has been in the news many times since its establishment, for their accomplishments, notable alumni, such as eight U.S. presidents, numerous Nobel Prize laureates, and 188 living billionaires.
However, at times, the university has been included in the news for the wrong reasons as well. While Harvard University has dealt with scandals regarding issues such as cheating before, their most recent scandal has impacted the faculty and students in a major way, involving the President of Harvard University, Claudine Gay. A few allegations about her role as President of Harvard during the start of the Israel-Hamas War, and accusations about her role regarding serious plagiarism on the campus led to her resignation. How did this all start? Who is Claudine Gay? Are the allegations true?
The beginning of the end started on October 7, 2023, when a group of students at Harvard blamed Israel for the Hamas attack. They released a statement, fully blaming Israel for the violence. The statement connected the attacks to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and called on Harvard to take action to stop the annihilation of the Palestianians. Soon after, Claudine Gay would condemn Hamas, claiming they perpetrated many terrorist atrocities, and even said that the 30 students who released the statement didn’t speak for the university. Then, on November 28, 2023, The Department of Education launched an investigation into Harvard University. The official reason was “for discrimination involving shared ancestry.” This is a term that surrounds antisemitism and Islamophobia. On December 5, 2023, Claudine Gay testified before the United States Congress. Elise Stepfanik, a Republican Rep. from New York asked Gay if Harvard University would allow the actions of students who yelled for uprising in Arabic. She responded that while she did see the speech as “abhorrent” and “at odds with the value of Harvard,” the university still embraces “a commitment to free expression even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful.”
Following this, the whole house of cards began to crumble for Claudine Gay. Soon after her testimony, she received criticism and backlash for her testimony. Many calls were placed to her, demanding that she resign from her position as President of Harvard University. Then, Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund CEO and vocal supporter of Israel, made allegations that Gay had plagiarized her academic work on social media on December 9. Six days later, she attempted to fix her tainted image using scholarly articles from 2001 and 2017. Gay’s writings were reviewed. It revealed that there were inadequate citations in a few instances but “no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct.” By December 21, there were more corrections requested, but it seemed things were becoming too severe. On January 2, 2024, Gay resigned from her position, only six months after taking office. In her resignation letter, she stated that it is “frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus,” planning instead to return to a faculty position. Regardless, the 2023 scandal of Harvard University is one of many examples of the effect the Israel-Hamas war is having on the United States, as well as the rest of the world.
https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/harvard-president-claudine-gay-plagiarism-probe/index.html- Information
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