Harvard President Claudine Gay Apologizes for Weak Stance on Antisemitism

Harvard president Claudine Gay apologized Thursday for her weak stance against antisemitism during congressional testimony earlier this week, telling the Harvard Crimson that she had failed to live up to her own “guiding truth.”

As Breitbart News noted, Gay was questioned by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a graduate of Harvard, who asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews constituted a violation of the university’s code of conduct. Gay replied that it depended on the “context.”

U.S. House of Representatives

Gay tried to walk back her stance the following day, but ended up repeating it, without clarifying if calls for genocide were allowed. The university has, as Stefanik pointed out, punished other forms of perceived hate speech.

On Thursday, Gay apologized. In an interview, the Crimson reported:

Harvard President Claudine Gay apologized for her remarks at the end of her congressional testimony, which sparked fierce national criticism and led the leadership of Harvard Hillel to say they don’t trust her to protect Jewish students at the University.

“I am sorry,” Gay said in an interview with The Crimson on Thursday. “Words matter.”

…

“I got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures,” Gay said in the interview. “What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged.”

Stefanik rejected Gay’s apology:

No, Dr. Gay.

You were given an opportunity to speak your truth. And you did.

Not once.
Not twice
Not 5x.
Not 10x

I asked you 17x(!!!) in the hearing about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates @Harvard code of conduct.

You spoke your truth under oath 17x. And…

— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) December 8, 2023

University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, who was Gay’s co-panelist, is facing pressure to resign over her similar stance.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.