Harvard announces Claudine Gay will be next president of the university
July 1, 2023
Claudine Gay takes office as president of Harvard
September 29
Gay inaugurated as president of Harvard, highlights in speech “the importance of courage”
October 7
Hamas invades Israel, killing about 1,200 civilians; a coalition of students called “Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups” issues a statement that same day saying the organizations “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence”
October 9
After public criticism for not saying anything publicly, Harvard issues a 384-word statement signed by Gay and 17 other Harvard administrators saying they are “heartbroken by the death and destruction unleashed by the attack by Hamas that targeted citizens in Israel” that does not directly condemn Hamas
October 10
Under intense criticism for the timing and content of the first statement, Gay issues a second statement (under her name only) saying “let there be no doubt that I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas”
October 16
The Wexner Foundation ends its multi-million-dollar donations to Harvard (which began in 1989) funding a leadership program for Israeli bureaucrats at the university’s John F. Kennedy School of Government
November 9
Harvard’s provost, Alan Garber, says the university’s first public statement on the Hamas attack on Israel “did not succeed” and that uproar over it is the most serious crisis he has seen at Harvard since becoming provost (the number-two administrative position) in 2011
November 29
The Harvard Crimson publishes a story saying that there is widespread concern among major donors to Harvard that donations to the university will dry up because of how Gay has handled the Hamas crisis
December 5
Gay appears at a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and the Work Force about anti-Semitism on college campuses, along with the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; asked for a second time if “calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard’s code of conduct,” Gay responds: “Again, it depends on the context”
December 6
Gay issues statement attempting to clarify her testimony, says that “Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community … have no place at Harvard”
74 members of Congress (most of them Republicans) sign a letter calling on Gay to resign; letter also calls for resignations of the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
December 9
Liz Magill resigns as president of the University of Pennsylvania
December 10
Conservative activist Christopher Rufo publishes on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter instances where Gay used passages from other authors in her 1998 doctoral dissertation without quotation marks or citations
December 12
The Harvard Corporation, the smaller of two governing boards of Harvard University, issues a statement supporting Gay, calling her “the right leader to help our community heal” while acknowledging Gay’s apology for her remarks before Congress, and while also acknowledging “a few instances of inadequate citation” in two of her published academic articles that the board says amount to “no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct”
December 16
U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) publishes a column in The Wall Street Journal describing a visit to the reading room of Harvard’s Widener Library on Sunday, December 10 in which says he he saw “A large banner spread across one end of the room” that said in “blazing blood-red letters ‘Stop the Genocide in Gaza’ ” and engaged in a conversation with two organizers of the demonstration who accused him of being “a murderer” who supports “genocide”; the same day, The New York Times publishes a story reporting that many Jews at Harvard say they don’t feel safe on campus
January 2, 2024
Gay announces her resignation as president of Harvard University, 185 days after she started; it’s the shortest tenure for a Harvardpresident since the school was founded in 1636; Alan Garber named interimpresident
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