Harvard Governance Convenes Amid Calls for President’s Resignation
The Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers met on campus Sunday for their regularly scheduled meeting, which comes in the wake of growing calls for President Claudine Gay to resign following her recent congressional testimony.
During a break at the meeting, Harvard Corporation Senior Fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81 declined to answer questions about whether she would ask Gay to step down. The meeting, which follows the boards’ ordinary timeline, is taking place against the backdrop of mounting pressure for Gay to resign.
The calls for Gay’s resignation come after her testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, during which she and other university presidents declined to answer a question about whether calls for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s policies on bullying and harassment.
The exchange with Congresswoman Elise M. Stefanik went viral, and the president of the University of Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Magill, resigned amid the backlash and pressure from UPenn’s board of trustees. Gay, who has faced isolated calls to resign in the past, has received increasing pressure to step down, with over 70 members of Congress signing a letter to Harvard governance calling for her resignation.
The boards are expected to discuss the backlash to Gay’s testimony and make a decision on whether to issue a public statement in support of the president. While the Corporation has remained silent about Gay’s tenure, an increasing number of Harvard faculty members have expressed support for her.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.