Harvard President Claudine Gay will resign today (Tuesday) following months of controversy surrounding antisemitism and plagiarism scandals, the student newspaper the Harvard Crimson reported.
“It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president,” Gay wrote in her statement.
She added that it "has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual."
University Provost Alan M. Garber will serve as interim president until a full-time president is selected to replace Gay.
Gay assumed her position as president of America's most prestigious university just six months ago. Her resignation makes her the shortest-serving president in Harvard history.
At a congressional hearing on the phenomenon of antisemitism on college campuses, Gay, together with several other university presidents, danced around a question from Rep. Elise Stefanik on whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” is against the universities’ respective codes of conduct, saying that such a determination depended on the "context." She later apologized for her statements at the hearing.
Gay's performance at the hearing and refusal to condemn calls for genocide against Jews led to widespread calls for her resignation. These calls grew as she also became mired in a controversy over allegations of numerous instances of plagiarism in several of her articles.
The university stood by Gay despite the controversies and the loss of a reported $1 billion from angry donors.
"As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University," Harvard Corporation said in a statement signed by The Fellows of Harvard College four days after the hearing. "Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing."
Gay's resignation comes a day after she was hit with six new plagiarism accusations.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on X in response to the report of Gay's resignation: "A bit of context: leadership failure and denial of antisemitism have a price. I hope the glorious institution Harvard University learns from this sad conduct."