She said she was “sorry.” Harvard University President Claudine Gay, under fire for her responses during a tense hearing Tuesday in the US Congress regarding anti-Semitism on campus, said her words had “amplified the distress and pain “.
“I don’t know how you can feel anything other than regret,” she told the website of the university’s student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, in an article posted online Friday (December 8).
The president of the university was widely criticized for her responses to questions from Republican elected official Elise Stefanik, who likened the calls of certain students for the “Intifada” to an exhortation to “a genocide against the Jews in Israel And in the world “.
When the elected official asked her if “calling for the genocide of the Jews violates the rules concerning harassment at Harvard”, Claudine Gay replied: “It can, depending on the context”, before adding: “If it is directed against a person. »
She clarified: “When anti-Semitic rhetoric turns into behavior amounting to intimidation and harassment (…), we take action. » “It does not depend on the context, the answer is yes and that is why you should resign,” the elected Republican told him at the end of the exchange.
Opening of an investigation
As of Wednesday, the president of Harvard had affirmed that the university did not condone “calls for violence” and that “those who threaten [its] Jewish students must be held accountable.”
But that did not end the controversy. The US Congress opened an investigation Thursday into what it called “rampant anti-Semitism” on campus, and a member of a Harvard advisory board on anti-Semitism, Rabbi David Wolpe, announced his resignation.
Since the bloody attacks by Hamas in Israel on October 7, followed by deadly reprisals by Israel, the conflict has unleashed passions in renowned universities in the United States, such as Harvard (near Boston), UPenn (Philadelphia) and Columbia (New York).
In particular, wealthy donors have put pressure on the leaders of these establishments to clearly condemn Hamas attacks and support Israel. In Columbia, two groups of pro-Palestinian students were also banned from activity.