Former President Barack Obama has secretly pressured Harvard University officials to support embattled President Claudine Gay as she faces pressure to resign for covering up anti-Semitism on campus and committing plagiarism.
Obama, 62, a 1991 graduate of Harvard Law School, privately urged the university to allow Gay to remain in office after she testified Dec. 5 before the Education and Workforce Committee. House of Representatives calling for genocide of Jews to be permissible under school code of conduct. behavior, depending on the “context,” according to a report released Friday.
“It seemed as if people were being asked to close ranks to keep the overall administration stable, including its composition,” a source told Jewish Insider of the former president’s clandestine effort.
Former President Barack Obama has quietly pressured Harvard University to retain embattled President Claudine Gay as she faces pressure to resign for covering up anti-Semitism. Getty Images Obama, 62, a Harvard graduate, privately urged the university to allow Gay to remain president after she said calls for the genocide of Jews may be permissible, depending on “context.” REUTERS
The report did not say whether that effort had continued after Gay’s scholarship came into question following his testimony about dozens of cases of alleged plagiarism.
An Obama spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Harvard declined to comment on the matter to Jewish Insider.
Gay’s fate is partially in the hands of former Obama Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, a member of a prominent Chicago family (her brother is Illinois Governor JB Pritzker), who serves as a senior member of the Harvard Corporation, the university’s highest governing body that recently investigated the president’s academic publications for evidence of plagiarism.
Gay previously told the Boston Globe in a statement: “I stand by the integrity of my scholarship. “Throughout my career, I have worked to ensure that my scholarship meets the highest academic standards.”
Gay’s fate is also in the hands of former Obama Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, who serves as a senior fellow at the Harvard Corporation, the university’s top governing body. The Harvard Gazette
On Wednesday, Harvard announced that “examples of duplicated language without proper attribution” were found in Gay’s 1997 doctoral dissertation following a review by a four-person subcommittee of the Corporation.
A separate review by a three-person independent panel also commissioned by the Harvard Corporation determined that no other inappropriate citations were discovered in “all of President Gay’s other published works.”
The same day, the House Education Committee sent a letter to Pritzker demanding that the university turn over internal records about its handling of the scandal after launching an earlier investigation into anti-Semitism at Harvard.
Gay previously told the Boston Globe: “I stand by the integrity of my scholarship. “Throughout my career, I have worked to ensure that my scholarship meets the highest academic standards.” Boston Globe via Getty Images
“If a university is willing to look the other way and not hold its faculty accountable for engaging in academically dishonest conduct, it degrades its mission and the value of its education,” wrote the panel’s chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC). North).
“Students should be evaluated fairly, according to known standards, and they have the right to see that teachers are too.”
During the hearing, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) grilled Gay, Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth, and then-University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill for refusing to denounce anti-Semitic protests in their campuses.
During a Dec. 5 hearing, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) questioned Gay, Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth, and University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill. REUTERS
Each emphasized that anti-Semitic speech – including calls for the genocide of Jews – did not necessarily violate university policies and depended on context.
Magill resigned a week after the hearing, while Gay and Kornbluth remained in their positions.
Pritzker, a 1981 Harvard graduate, was named a senior member of the Corporation in 2022 after donating $100 million to the university and led the search committee that named Gay as the school’s new president last year.
Announcing the election in December 2022, he praised Gay as “a remarkable leader who is deeply dedicated to sustaining and enhancing Harvard’s academic excellence.”
Each president emphasized that anti-Semitic speech – including calls for the genocide of Jews – did not necessarily violate university policies and depended on context. REUTERS
Following new allegations of plagiarism against the president this week, many academics have demanded Gay’s resignation in addition to those who called for it after his congressional hearing, including a professor whose work the Harvard president allegedly copied.
“Fire Claudine Gay in a hurry,” Carol Swain, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University, said Thursday. “They may be relieved of their duties until terms are negotiated. Hire the best man or woman who can bring the university back to sanity.”
Swain said Gay had taken sections from a book he published in 1993 and an article he wrote in 1997 without proper attribution.
Following new allegations of plagiarism against the president this week, many academics have demanded Gay’s resignation, in addition to those who called for it after his congressional hearing. Adam Guillette / Precision in the media
New York Times columnist and Columbia University linguistics professor John McWhorter has also called for Gay to resign, saying that the more than 40 instances of improper attribution in her academic work “make it untenable for her to remain in office.” post”.
Pritzker has yet to weigh in publicly on the controversy, but Harvard Corporation board members said in a Dec. 12 statement that they “reaffirm” their support for Gay’s leadership.
“Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and address the very serious social issues we face,” the board said.
However, billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin told the New York Times that Pritzker, who is Jewish, had privately agreed that Harvard’s response to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack had been lukewarm and that it needed to be published. a statement in solidarity with Israel.
Meanwhile, the school’s loyal supporters have suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in donations over Gay’s decision to support student groups that blamed the Jewish state for Hamas atrocities.
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