Harvard professors rally behind school president amid antisemitism backlash

(NewsNation) — Harvard’s trustees are holding meetings amid growing calls from lawmakers and the public for President Claudine Gay to step down.

Now, the question remains as to whether the university will support its president or ask for her resignation.

Over the weekend, hundreds of Harvard faculty members signed a petition, urging the school to “resist political pressure” and keep Gay as president.

But, on campuses, students expressed their outrage over safety concerns, and what they say is a lack of action by universities against Jewish hate.

Gay apologized for her responses to questions during a House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing last week. During the hearing, Gay, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth testified about antisemitism on campus.

“I am sorry,” Gay told student newspaper The Harvard Crimson. “Words matter.” 

“When words amplify distress and pain, I don’t know how you could feel anything but regret,” she added. 

During the hearing, New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik repeatedly asked the administrators whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” went against their school policy and conduct.

Magill answered, “If the speech turns into conduct it can be harassment, yes.”

Pressed further, Magill told Stefanik, “It is a context-dependent decision, congresswoman.”

Gay and Kornbluth gave similar responses to Stefanik.

Magill later made a video posted on the University of Pennsylvania’s X page saying that “a call for genocide for Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetuate.”

But this didn’t quell the criticism from students, alumni and donors — one of whom, Ross Stevens, withdrew a gift worth around $100 million from UPenn to protest the school’s response to antisemitism on campus.

Over 70 lawmakers signed a bipartisan letter on Friday calling for Gay, Magill and Kornbluth to lose their positions.

Magill ultimately resigned at the request of the Board of Trustees.

Though she decided to “voluntarily” tender her resignation, according to the statement, Magill will remain a tenured faculty member at Penn Carey Law and has agreed to stay on until an interim president is appointed.

“One down. Two to go,” Stefanik posted on social media just moments after the announcement. Stefanik has faced criticism of her own, NewsNation partner The Hill reports, specifically from Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, who asked how she could get “off lecturing anybody about antisemitism when she’s the hugest supporter of Donald Trump, who traffics in antisemitism all the time” in an interview with MSNCBC’s Ali Velshi.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, 73% of Jewish college students have experienced or witnessed some form of antisemitism since the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year. 

University of Pennsylvania senior Eyal Yakoby is suing the school, saying the failure to address antisemitic incidents on campus is creating a hostile learning environment for him and other Jewish students.

“What it’s about is truly safety and not normalizing hatred on campus. And I think there’s a clear difference between what will happen and what should happen,” Yakoby said.

North Carolina Rep. Kathy Manning, a Democrat, says she has pushed for a bipartisan bill to combat antisemitism. In the interim, Manning has penned a letter of her own to Harvard, MIT and UPenn saying the universities need to reevaluate their policies and practices.

“All three presidents of their universities failed to call out with moral clarity the problems they’re having on their campuses,” Manning said. “I authored a letter to call on all the university boards of directors, boards of overseers, to examine what’s going on on their campuses, to determine whether antisemitic violence or hostility or harassment violates their codes of conduct.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.