(RepublicanReport.org) – Harvard President Claudine Gay recently made headlines for her disastrous testimony before Congress, when she failed to stand up for Israel amid lawmakers’ tough questions. The university seemed quick to forgive her, especially given the backlash, but former President Barack Obama may have had a hand in helping the Harvard leader keep her job.
The Harvard Crimson reported on the December 5 congressional hearing where Gay and two other university presidents spoke regarding their policies on anti-Semitism. It noted that the hearing lasted six hours, but social media exploded over her unwillingness to respond directly to one specific question: does promoting genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s bullying and harrassment policies? At the time, Gay insisted that “context” was important, infuriating Israeli supporters. She later apologized, insisting there had simply been a misunderstanding. She also clarified her stance to state that anyone who threatened Jews on her campus would answer for it, but the backlash continued. Still, Harvard stood by its president.
The Jewish Insider claims, according to an anonymous source, that Obama spoke privately with university leaders when Gay was feeling the weight of outside pressure to resign. The former president, who attended Harvard, reportedly lobbied for her to remain in her position. The publication attempted to contact Obama’s office for confirmation but received no comment.
The Hill shares that criticism over the university’s decision to keep Gay has only grown in recent weeks, with allegations that the Harvard president plagiarized several of her published academic papers only adding to her controversy. The university’s board members dismissed the plagiarism allegations, stating Gay had merely failed to add quotation marks in a few places and would be submitting corrections for the works — one of which was her 1997 dissertation.
Congress will be conducting an independent investigation of the plagiarism claims to determine whether Harvard is treating Gay as it would any other offender.
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