Eden Getahun was ecstatic when, just 13 months ago, she learned Harvard University would have its first Black female president. But she sensed even then that Claudine Gay, a prominent African American studies scholar, would face harsh obstacles leading the predominantly white institution.
There was “excitement and hope in terms of what it represents for Black women everywhere to see someone like them in a position of authority like this,” said Getahun, a Black woman and a junior studying social studies at Harvard. “But I did, from the very beginning, recognize there is a chance that she is just going to be used as a puppet of the institution. This situation has proven she still is a victim of these controlling forces.”
Gay resigned as president of the university Tuesday after she faced backlash for her testimony at a congressional hearing last month about antisemitism on U.S. campuses, which was followed by allegations of plagiarism. The charge was largely led by conservative activists who deemed her a “diversity hire.”
The Harvard Corporation, which oversees the university’s governance, has not yet responded to a request for comment. In a statement issued Tuesday, the corporation said it had accepted Gay’s resignation “with sorrow” and condemned the “repugnant and in some cases racist vitriol directed at her through disgraceful emails and phone calls.”
For Black women in the Harvard community like Getahun and Aimee Howard, both part of the Association of Black Harvard Women, the situation is a “disappointing” reminder of the ways Black women are undermined and scrutinized no matter how high up the ranks they climb.
“It’s really heart-wrenching,” Howard, a Harvard junior government and African American studies major, said of Gay’s resignation. “It’s very telling that this type of scrutiny, this type of backlash,” was aimed at the university’s “first Black woman president. I feel like Claudine Gay is becoming the…
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