HARVARD PRESIDENT APOLOGIZES FOR REMARKS TO CONGRESS
Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, apologized to the university community for her testimony before Congress, where she gave evasive responses to questions about whether calls for the genocide of Jews would violate campus policies.
“I am sorry,” Gay said in an interview that the campus newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, published Friday. “Words matter.
“When words amplify distress and pain, I don’t know how you could feel anything but regret,” she said.
The interview came as Gay faced a storm of repercussions, including the abrupt resignation of a rabbi from Harvard’s antisemitism advisory committee, the start of a congressional inquiry and even suggestions from a prominent alumnus that she was unqualified for her post, which she assumed in July.
Gay said in the interview that she had become “caught up” in a volley of questions Tuesday from Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and “should have had the presence of mind” during the exchange to “return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard and will never go unchallenged.”
The exchanges involving Stefanik, Gay and two other university leaders, Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania and Sally Kornbluth of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have thrown three of the country’s most influential colleges into turmoil.
On Thursday, a House committee opened an investigation into “the learning environments” on all three campuses, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said the three presidents should leave their posts.
Asked during Tuesday’s hearing whether urging the genocide of the Jewish people amounted to defying Harvard policies against bullying and harassment, Gay replied, “It can be, depending on the context.”
Bill Ackman, a billionaire investor and Harvard alumnus, insisted on social media this week that the appointment of Gay was connected to the university’s goals for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Gay has offered no public signal that she is considering resigning.