A new, and cloudy, day at Harvard

So the president of Harvard has been driven from office because of an uproar inflamed by partisan gotcha questions from a right-wing politician. Fumbled answers in front of a congressional committee led to accusations of antisemitism and an investigation of alleged plagiarism in Gay’s 1997 doctoral dissertation and other work. The Globe editorial board’s response has been to demand more “transparency” in the processes of the Harvard Corporation and more rigorous vetting of presidential candidates by the school (“Claudine Gay’s resignation is also about the Harvard Corporation,” Editorial, Jan. 3). Interim Harvard president Dr. Alan Garber has promised “broad engagement and consultation with the Harvard community in the time ahead.”

So what will that entail? An election of the next Harvard president by students and faculty (the latter having already broadly supported Gay)? And perhaps a final review of candidates by Congress? After all, Congress had already begun to investigate the charges of academic plagiarism.

Instead of scolding the ineptitude of the Harvard administration, why not decry what one faculty member has called the imposition of “mob rule” in the realm of higher education and the (certainly transparent) political agenda and misogynoir that led to the resignation of a distinguished scholar and administrator who promised to bring visionary change to a major academic institution?

JON GARELICK Somerville

The writer is a retired member of the Globe Opinion department.

Claudine Gay’s resignation as president of Harvard University has sparked a range of perspectives on the reasons behind her departure. Depending on one’s viewpoint, factors that have been cited include her handling of the increasing antisemitism on campus, allegations of plagiarism, unfair politicization, and her gender and race.

As a centrist, I find the arguments from both the right and left unappealing. It is naive to assume that the job of president of an elite university is not inherently political. There is also no getting around the fact that Gay is both a woman and Black. Further, the trend of rising antisemitism at Harvard began under the leadership of presidents who were from a Jewish background. However, and importantly, these are factors that were beyond Gay’s control and influence.

What she could influence and control were the lack of moral clarity in her initial public responses to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel by Hamas; her congressional testimony made on behalf of the university; and multiple instances of apparent plagiarism. These are all choices she made.

I wish Claudine Gay were still president of Harvard University, but to suggest that she did not have agency in her own downfall ignores some unfortunate facts.

JOSHUA DIETCH Boston

The strong possibility of president Claudine Gay’s resignation was blowing in the wind for some time. Regrettably, the Harvard Corporation let her fate remain an open question for far too long.

The issues concerning plagiarism remain fuzzy in part due to Harvard’s seemingly Zagat-inspired criteria. As a former college president, I continue to find the murkiness of this episode troubling, for we all lose when the citadel of higher learning stumbles.

Hopefully, Harvard officialdom will be allowed to exercise meaningful shared governance rather than the university’s being subjected to the clandestine workings of private equity.

DAVID L. LEVINSON Waltham

The writer is the former president of Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, Conn.

So at Harvard they shower Henry Kissinger with praise, but they find a way to denigrate and dispose of the first Black female president of the university because of some missing footnotes and some unpopular replies to sensitive queries?

I so wish Claudine Gay would have barreled through this barrage of baloney and stood her ground. What did she have to lose at this point? Her moral integrity and every other personal thought or feeling had been dissected and questioned ad nauseam, and disrespectfully, so there was no longer any so-called high ground she could claim. I’d have liked her to just bully her way through and survive the onslaught. That would have been her victory. It would have been difficult, but many lesser individuals have done it.

LIZ CASEY Dorchester

The Fellows of Harvard College, a.k.a. the Corporation, exhibit characteristics of the British monarchy. They could have acted in the way of a recent episode of “The Crown,” in which Prince Charles and future Queen Camilla included an expressly spoken admission of premarital wrongdoing as part of their civil marriage ceremony.

Harvard may have screwed up in its vetting of presidential candidates, including Claudine Gay, but the university could have atoned by allowing her humbly and publicly to apologize for missteps in her scholarly work and by staunchly defending her as an outstanding and worthy choice to lead, and continue to lead, the university.

GEORGE HARLEM

Acton

There were girls who saw themselves as president of the United States when Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee. We nurtured their dreams. We encouraged them to focus on their studies, go to college, work diligently, and they, too, could one day be president. Sorry, girls, but a man who clearly didn’t have the experience or the knowledge to do the job was elected president.

There were Black girls who saw themselves as president of Harvard University when Claudine Gay, a Black woman with years of experience, was named to the position. Sorry, girls, you may actually get the job but there are people with power and influence who may undermine your leadership. They may disparage your reputation and scholarly work, forcing you to resign.

But, girls, just keep trying, as you always do: Lean in, be resilient, have fortitude, develop a growth mind-set, and, as Gloria said in the movie “Barbie”: “Never forget that the system is rigged.”

DEBORAH RE Marblehead