Harvard’s Board Says President Will Stay, Despite Calls for Her Ouster

Claudine Gay will stay on as president of Harvard University, the school’s governing board announced on Tuesday, despite an uproar over her evasive answers at a congressional hearing about campus antisemitism.

The members of the board, the Harvard Corporation, deliberated into the night on Monday before finally deciding not to remove Dr. Gay, the university’s first Black president, from her post.

“As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University,” said a statement signed by all of the board members other than Dr. Gay. “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.”

The statement goes on, however, to acknowledge that Dr. Gay had made mistakes, including in her initial reaction to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. “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 statement said.

Dr. Gay now faces the challenge of regaining the confidence of the Harvard community, which has been roiled by the conflict in Gaza.

Support for her presidency, which began in July, began eroding with her initial reluctance to condemn the Hamas attacks. After criticism from influential figures like Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary, Dr. Gay issued stronger condemnations, but that was not enough to assuage the fears of many Jewish students or alumni.

After her disastrous Dec. 5 appearance before Congress, donors, alumni and students ratcheted up a pressure campaign to oust her, while supporters banded together to try to save her job. About 700 members of Harvard’s faculty, and hundreds more alumni, came to her defense in several open letters.

One of the letters, from Black faculty members, called the attacks on the president “specious and politically motivated.” The letter, which was drafted and signed by some of Harvard’s most prominent professors, said that Dr. Gay “should be given the chance to fulfill her term to demonstrate her vision for Harvard.”

Critics of Dr. Gay also pressed their case.

One of the most outspoken, William A. Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager and Harvard alumnus, said in an interview earlier this week that she should resign for the good of the school.

“I don’t see a scenario where she survives for the long term, or even the intermediate term,” he said.

Over the last two months, Dr. Gay has made a point of addressing the concerns of Jews.

On Oct. 27, at a Shabbat dinner at Harvard Hillel, she announced the formation of an advisory group to help her “develop a robust strategy for confronting antisemitism on campus.” And she condemned the phrase “from the river to the sea,” which is chanted by pro-Palestinian protesters and condemned by Jews as antisemitic.

“Our Jewish students have shared searing accounts of feeling isolated and targeted,” she said. “This shakes me to my core — as an educator, as a mother, as a human being. Harvard must be a place where everyone feels safe and seen. It is just the right thing to do.”

But despite these efforts, her appearance in Washington with two other university presidents, Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania and Sally Kornbluth of M.I.T., shook her presidency.

During the hearing, Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, pelted the presidents with hypothetical questions that, on Saturday, led to Ms. Magill’s resignation from Penn.

“At Harvard,” Ms. Stefanik asked Dr. Gay, “does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no?”

Dr. Gay replied, “It can be, depending on the context.” Pressed by Ms. Stefanik, Dr. Gay added a few moments later, “Antisemitic rhetoric, when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct, and we do take action.”

Ms. Stefanik tried again: “So, the answer is yes, that calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard code of conduct, correct?”

Dr. Gay answered, “Again, it depends on the context.”

The exchange rocketed across social media and infuriated many people with close ties to Harvard.

Dr. Gay moved to contain the fallout with an apology in an interview that was published on Friday in The Harvard Crimson, the campus newspaper.

“When words amplify distress and pain, I don’t know how you could feel anything but regret,” Dr. Gay told The Crimson.

She also told the newspaper that she had been “caught up” in the exchange with Ms. Stefanik, but that she “should have had the presence of mind” during her testimony to “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.”