Controversy lingers at Harvard
After president’s resignation over winter break, many students ready to move on but some say tensions simmer
Bulletin boards with posters advertising campus protests have been cleared for the start of a new semester. A light dusting of snow blankets the grounds of Harvard Yard, covering autumn’s fallen leaves and signaling seasonal change.
As Harvard students return to classes this week — and the university emerges from a winter break that saw the resignation of its president following serial controversies — most said they just wanted to return to classes and learning, not the drama that has engulfed Harvard for months.
Yet many also pointed to an undercurrent of still-simmering tensions and described a campus community weighed down by quiet fear and mistrust. An unspoken taboo seems to have fallen upon campus conversations, some said, with students speaking in hushed tones about the presidential controversy, if they speak about it at all.
Ian Thompson, a junior, said Claudine Gay’s resignation as Harvard’s president seemed to have had a minimal impact on students — “probably because it didn’t happen while we were on campus,” he said. But he said he expected anxieties to rise again as the semester gets going.
He noted that custodial crews stripped posters with political messages about the Israel-Hamas war from dorm walls and notice boards. Last semester, he said, they were a reminder of the ongoing violence.
But “those have been wiped clean with the break,” Thompson said.
They’ll likely be back, though, he said.
Kiran Masra, a graduate student who works as a tutor and lives in the undergraduate dorms, said she had only been back at Harvard since Monday night, but students, especially undergraduates, seem “really afraid.”
She said there seems to be an atmosphere of uncertainty on campus, which plays out in dining halls and common spaces.
“People are really frightened, and they don’t
‘We think the problem is much deeper than the president.’ AVI GOLDWASSER, of Jewish Leadership Project
know who they can trust,” she said. “In previous semesters, students would be sitting anywhere, with anyone, and now you really see groups of people [who] know who their friends are.”
Last semester, students in her dorm had their faces displayed on a truck carrying massive screens after signing a statement that called Israel “entirely responsible” for Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. She said some took their names off their doors out of concern for their safety.
On Tuesday, in an echo of the fall, another box truck circled Harvard’s campus, this time targeting members of the Harvard Corporation, the school’s top governing board. A series of messages cycled across its screens.
“The Harvard Corporation is a laughingstock,” one side declared, in part. “You have done enough damage. Be honorable and resign.”
The truck bore the logo of the Jewish Leadership Project, a national organization whose mission is to “demand Jewish leaders prioritize the safety and welfare of the Jewish community over all other concerns,” according to its website. Cofounder
Avi Goldwasser said in an interview, “We don’t kid ourselves” that the truck will force the Corporation’s resignation. But he said it was part of a wider effort to keep public pressure on the university and its governing board following Gay’s resignation.
“We think the problem is much deeper than the president. Her resignation doesn’t solve the problem, it’s a step,” Goldwasser said. “Ultimately, you have to go back to the people in charge.”
Some students expressed annoyance at such displays, saying they just wanted to focus on their classes. Although the Israel-Hamas conflict remained an issue, some said, Gay’s departure was not a hot topic of conversation anymore.
Passing through Harvard
Yard, Adaolisa Mba, 19, said she and her peers are just trying to “stay on top of our work” now that classes are back in session.
“A lot of the outrage, initial outrage — we already expressed it on social media” over the break, Mba said.
Mba said she and other students were surprised at Gay’s resignation as president; and yet, the first-year has not heard anyone in her social circles talking about Gay since Mba’s return earlier this week.
Although many Harvard students may find the attention and pressure on the university “stressful,” Luka Pavikjevikj, a first-year history major from North Macedonia, said he sees it as an opportunity. The university, he said, must maintain high academic standards and restore its international prestige. “We from other countries look up to it as the best higher education available in the world. That in itself exerts a high responsibility for us as a community to excel as a university, to keep that status, to earn that status,” said Pavikjevikj.
Pavikjevikj said he hopes the university will prioritize “freedom of expression and academic freedom” moving forward.
“I look forward to the opportunity it presents, whether we will be able to restore both the highest academic standard and academic freedom,” he said. “To truly make the mission of our motto — veritas.”