Harvard is known as one of the most prestigious universities in the world and has a roster of prominent alumni that range from politicians and media executives to educators and business owners.

Historically, the demographics of Harvard students has been predominantly white but one of the school’s monumental moments was when it elected its first Black president, Claudine Gay, in Dec. 2022.

However, the war between Hamas and Israel spurred a rise of antisemitism against Jewish students, which prompted many of them to file a federal lawsuit against the university. 

Nonetheless, Gay along with University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill were on the panel for a congressional hearing last December, and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) asked Gay if calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s rule of bullying.

“It can be, depending on the context,” said Gay.

Stefanik was not pleased with Gay’s response and she asked her what the context would be as she repeated the question several times. 

“Antisemitic rhetoric when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation — that is accountable conduct and we do take action,” Gay said. 

Stefanik still wasn’t swayed by her answer and urged the former president to quickly resign.

Gay faced backlash over her comments and she quickly apologized for her remarks but active allegations of plagiarism challenged her academic integrity. 

Morgan President David Wilson spoke at Morgan’s annual faculty institute and the conversation ranged from technological advancement to enhanced campus security. However, someone also asked how he felt about the allegations against his comrade and shared his insight into the review of Gay’s work. 

“When that happened in regard to Gay and the Harvard corporation and did their own study, they reached out to the two or three people that allegedly she had plagiarized,” he said. “They indicated that this was something quite minor and that it was really not about research misconduct that it could very well have been just a bit of technical sloppiness.” 

Nonetheless, in the midst of the allegations Gay decided to resign from her position, which was the shortest tenure of any president throughout Harvard’s history. The Harvard Crimson first reported Gay’s resignation, which the former president announced in a letter she wrote to the university on Jan. 2.

“As we welcome a new year and a new semester, I hope we all can look forward to brighter days. Sad as I am to be sending this message, my hopes for Harvard remain undimmed. When my brief presidency is remembered, I hope it will be seen as a moment of reawakening to the importance of striving to find our common humanity — and of not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education. I trust we will all find ways, in this time of intense challenge and controversy, to recommit ourselves to the excellence, the openness, and the independence that are crucial to what our university stands for — and to our capacity to change the world,” Gay wrote. 

As the faculty meeting ended, Wilson reminisced about the time he spent with Gay and how they had planned to collaborate between the two universities. 

“I was actually developing a very close relationship with President Gay and I spent one-on-one with her in July,” he said. “We got to a great space that was leading to a collaboration between Harvard and Morgan, and then she invited me with six other HBCU presidents to a private luncheon the day before her inauguration in Cambridge.”

Wilson shared his sentiments about Gay’s resignation on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

“What a terrible loss of potentially having the most transformational presidency in Harvard’s history,” wrote Wilson “I have come to know and respect Claudine Gay as a deeply thoughtful, humane, inclusive and engaging leader. With her stellar background, she was a great fit for this role.”