The Harvard Corporation, one of the university’s two governing boards, said in a statement on Tuesday: “we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University”.
But the body did criticise the university’s initial response to the Hamas October 7 attacks that Israel said killed 1,200 people inside Israel and saw around 240 people taken hostage.
Israel’s offensive has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed at least 18,200 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Trump still owns the Republican Party, but Elise Stefanik waits in the wings
Trump still owns the Republican Party, but Elise Stefanik waits in the wings
In the United States, the controversy has come amid a rise in attacks and violent rhetoric targeting Jews and Muslims, including at universities, since the Israel-Gaza war erupted.
“So many people have suffered tremendous damage and pain because of Hamas’s brutal terrorist attack, and the University’s initial statement should have been an immediate, direct, and unequivocal condemnation,” the corporation said.
“Calls for genocide are despicable and contrary to fundamental human values.
“President Gay has apologised for how she handled her congressional testimony.”
Rabbi Getzel Davis, a Harvard campus chaplain and member of the Hillel Jewish student movement, said in response to the corporation’s announcement that “the most important thing for Jewish students at Harvard and Harvard Hillel is that the culture changes”.
“We look forward to continuing to work with President Gay and other senior Harvard administrators on … enforcing policies to protect Jewish students,” he said.
More than 70 lawmakers including two Democrats called for her resignation, while a number of high-profile Harvard alumni and donors have called for her departure.
In excess of 700 Harvard faculty members signed a letter supporting Gay.
Gay, 53, was born in New York to Haitian immigrants and is a professor of political science who in July became the first black president of 368-year-old Harvard University, in Cambridge, outside Boston.
Ryan Enos, professor of government at Harvard, said ahead of the corporation’s endorsement of Gay that “the reason that she has been pressured to resign is because of political pressure from politicians trying to shape universities in their image”.
“One of the bedrocks of a free society, one of the most important things for a free society, is that universities are not run by the state.”
Former student and multimillion-dollar donor Bill Ackman claimed in a letter to Harvard’s governing boards that “President Gay’s failures have led to billions of dollars of cancelled, paused, and withdrawn donations to the university”.
Tad Elmer, a resident of Cambridge where Harvard is based, said “colleges and universities are not political (and) should not be political actors”.