Claudine Homosexual is out as president of Harvard College after roughly six months on the job.

Homosexual introduced plans to resign on Tuesday following a firestorm of controversy in recent weeks associated to quite a few allegations of plagiarism and a extensively criticized look at a House hearing on antisemitism in December, at which she and two different school presidents equivocated on questions on threats to Jewish college students on campus.

The information of Homosexual’s resignation was first reported by The Harvard Crimson.

Homosexual made headlines in late 2022 when she was named the first Black woman to lead Harvard. Now her departure makes her the shortest-serving president within the college’s 388-year historical past.

A Sudden Resignation

Homosexual released a statement on Tuesday afternoon detailing her plans to step down.

“It’s with a heavy coronary heart however a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I shall be stepping down as president. This isn’t a choice I got here to simply. Certainly, it has been troublesome past phrases as a result of I’ve appeared ahead to working with so a lot of you to advance the dedication to educational excellence that has propelled this nice college throughout centuries,” Homosexual wrote.

She added that her resignation was “in the very best pursuits of Harvard” to permit the campus to “navigate this second of extraordinary problem with a deal with the establishment relatively than any particular person.”

Homosexual earned her Ph.D. at Harvard in 1998, joined the school in 2008 and have become dean of Harvard’s College of Arts and Sciences in 2018 earlier than she was tapped to be president.

Critics have accused Homosexual of plagiarizing a part of her Ph.D. thesis and different revealed works. The president largely downplayed the accusations—whereas submitting some corrections over quotation points—however the allegations continued to pile up, together with new claims that emerged Monday.

She steered that criticism of her scholarship has been “fueled by racial animus,” an obvious nod to the conservative activists who first raised the plagiarism allegations. Chief amongst them: Chris Rufo, a New Faculty of Florida trustee who has staunchly opposed range, fairness and inclusion initiatives.

Homosexual resigned regardless of a latest assertion of assist from the Harvard Company, one of many college’s two governing boards, which in December affirmed its confidence within the president.

The physique reiterated its assist for Homosexual on Tuesday afternoon, even because it accepted her resignation.

“These previous a number of months have seen Harvard and better schooling face a collection of sustained and unprecedented challenges. Within the face of escalating controversy and battle, President Homosexual and the [Harvard Corporation] Fellows have sought to be guided by the very best pursuits of the establishment whose future progress and well-being we’re collectively dedicated to uphold,” members said in a statement thanking Homosexual for her “deep and selfless” dedication to Harvard.

The assertion additionally acknowledged Homosexual’s resilience in withstanding “repugnant and in some instances racist vitriol directed at her by way of disgraceful emails and telephone calls,” condemning such assaults “within the strongest potential phrases.”

The Listening to Fallout

Homosexual was one in all three college presidents to talk at December’s congressional listening to on antisemitism, spurred by campus acrimony over the Israel-Hamas warfare. Snippets of the testimony shortly went viral because the presidents sidestepped pointed questions on institutional insurance policies and the way they’d reply to calls on campus for the genocide of Jewish folks.

Their responses prompted widespread condemnation and even a Saturday Night Live sketch.

Homosexual and the 2 presidents who appeared alongside her—Liz Magill of the College of Pennsylvania and Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise—all match the identical profile: girls main extremely selective establishments who had been of their jobs for a 12 months or much less.

And up to now, two of the three have resigned their presidential posts.

Magill was the first to go, stepping down in early December below stress from donors and board members relationship again to a Palestinian literature competition she permitted on campus within the fall. Her disastrous efficiency on the listening to solely compounded their discontent, making Magill’s place more and more untenable. Following her resignation, Board of Trustees chair Scott Bok additionally stepped down, elevating considerations in regards to the degree of affect donors have on campus.

Each Magill and Homosexual are anticipated to hitch the school ranks at their respective establishments.

Harvard is now elevating Provost Alan Garber to the place of interim president.

Reactions

Information of Homosexual’s resignation sparked predictable reactions Tuesday afternoon. Conservatives who had known as for her head celebrated, whereas supporters lamented her determination to step down.

After Magill resigned in December, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican who peppered the three presidents with questions on the listening to, wrote on X, “One down. Two to go.”

On Tuesday, Stefanik—a Harvard graduate—celebrated the information of Homosexual’s departure on social media.

“The resignation of Harvard’s antisemitic plagiarist president is lengthy overdue. Claudine Homosexual’s morally bankrupt solutions to my questions made historical past as essentially the most seen Congressional testimony within the historical past of the U.S. Congress,” Stefanik wrote on X.

The Home Committee on Schooling and the Workforce has sought more information about how Harvard is dealing with the plagiarism allegations in opposition to Homosexual.

Schooling Committee chairwoman Virginia Foxx, a Republican consultant from North Carolina, issued an announcement Tuesday welcoming the information of Homosexual’s resignation and accusing greater schooling of falling captive to “political activists, woke school, and partisan directors.”

Rufo, the activist who first leveled plagiarism allegations in opposition to Homosexual, took a victory lap on X.

“Immediately, we have a good time victory. Tomorrow, we get again to the struggle. We should not cease till we have now abolished DEI ideology from each establishment in America,” Rufo wrote in a post on X, showing to counsel that Homosexual was a range rent who was unqualified to function president of Harvard.

Others solid Homosexual’s resignation as an ominous win for right-wing forces and main donors.

“I’ve no explicit love for Claudine Homosexual, however it is a *main* victory for reactionary donors and the far proper’s marketing campaign to dismantle American greater schooling,” David Austin Walsh, writer of Taking America Again: The Conservative Motion and the Far Proper, wrote on X.

Some sitting school presidents additionally weighed in. Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington College, had previously criticized Gay, Magill and Kornbluth over the listening to, arguing that each one three failed to talk with ethical readability and fell right into a congressional lure. In a post on X, McGuire steered that Homosexual, like all school presidents, had a goal on her again.

“Tragic, inevitable. If there’s one factor I’ve realized over a few years as president of a far much less seen college: somebody is coming for you daily—you must maintain your file spotless as a result of they are going to discover the one free thread and pull it till you’re bare,” she wrote.