Pressure mounts on Harvard president Claudine Gay to step down

Pressure is mounting on Harvard President Claudine Gay, who is facing calls to resign after a controversial appearance before Congress last week.

Dr Gay, 53, was forced to apologise after she failed to say whether students calling for the genocide of Jewish people would be disciplined.

Hundreds of Harvard faculty rallied behind her over the weekend, urging the school to resist pressure to fire her.

Her fate may be decided at a meeting of the Harvard Corporation on Monday.

Dr Gay's controversial comments came while she was at a House of Representatives hearing alongside Elizabeth Magill and Sally Kornbluth, her counterparts from the University of Pennsylvania and MIT.

During tense questioning from Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Dr Gay said it "depends on the context" when asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews would constitute a violation of Harvard's code of conduct regarding bullying and harassment.

"I am sorry," Dr Gay said in a subsequent interview with the Crimson, Harvard's campus newspaper. "When words amplify distress and pain, I don't know how you could feel anything but regret."

The 13-member Harvard Corporation - one of the institution's two governing bodies - is scheduled to meet later on Monday and will reportedly discuss Dr Gay's fate and the school's potential courses of action.

Over the weekend, more than 500 faculty members signed a petition calling on Harvard to "resist political pressures that are at odds with Harvard's commitment to academic freedom, including calls for the removal of President Claudine Gay".

Alison Frank Johnson, one of the petition's co-authors, told Reuters that staff "don't want to lose her because of a political stunt".

"I get the impression that many people don't know how much support she has as a scholar, colleague, and administrator within the university, including from people who sometimes disagree with her," she said.

In July, Dr Gay became Harvard's first black president in its 368-year history.

More than 70 members of Congress have called for her resignation alongside Ms Magill's and Ms Kornbluth's, In a letter, the mostly Republican lawmakers referred to the college presidents' answers as "abhorrent" and standing "in stark contrast to the principles we expect leaders of top academic institutions to uphold".

"It is hard to imagine any Jewish or Israeli student, faculty or staff feeling safe when presidents of your member institutions could not say that calls for the genocide of Jews would have clear consequences on your campus," the letter added.

On Saturday, President Magill announced that she had "voluntarily tendered her resignation". It came after a major university donor withdrew a $100m (£80m) grant in protest over her comments.

Following Ms Magill's announcement that she was stepping down, Ms Stefanik again took aim at Dr Gay and Ms Kornbluth.

"One down, two to go," she wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

College campuses across the US have been the scene of frequent pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli protests, raising concerns about both Islamophobia and antisemitism.