“I fell into a well-laid trap”: Claudine Gay speaks out about Harvard resignation, death threats, and ‘racial campaign’ against her

Claudine Gay called the request to testify on antisemitism at prestigious institutions "a well-laid trap" the day after she resigned. Following a successful right-wing effort to remove her, Harvard's first Black president announced her resignation on Tuesday, January 2, 2024.

The New York Times published an opinion piece by Claudine Gay on Wednesday, January 3. In the article, she cautioned that the tactics employed against her were "merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society."

This article came in response to the accusations of plagiarism against her and criticism that she could have done more to stop the antisemitism on campus. Gay also expressed her desire to "deny demagogues the opportunity to further weaponize my presidency."

Calling her resignation “wrenching but necessary,” Gay described herself and Harvard as under attack. She further wrote,

“I fell into a well-laid trap.”

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Claudine Gay claimed that as opponents propagated "tired racial stereotypes" against her, she received death threats

Claudine Gay also speaks out about the ‘racial campaign’ against her (Image via Facebook / Harvard University)

Former Harvard President Claudine Gay claimed that during a weeks-long campaign against her reputation, intended to topple it, she received death threats and was called derogatory names.

Gay acknowledged that she "made mistakes" in her first significant statement since announcing her resignation in the article. She countered that "the campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader."

She also said that her invitation to appear before Congress about antisemitism on prestigious college campuses had been "a well-laid trap." She continued,

"As I depart, I must offer a few words of warning. The campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader. This was merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society."

In the same article, she further added,

“My character and intelligence have been impugned. My commitment to fighting antisemitism has been questioned. My inbox has been flooded with invective, including death threats. I’ve been called the N-word more times than I care to count.”

Regarding her plagiarism accusation, she acknowledged that she had copied words from other academics "without proper attribution" in her published work. She nevertheless defended the importance and uniqueness of her studies. Addressing the same, she wrote,

“I have never misrepresented my research findings, nor have I ever claimed credit for the research of others. Moreover, the citation errors should not obscure a fundamental truth: I proudly stand by my work and its impact on the field."

She also alleged that regarding her works, "tired racial stereotypes" were being fed by "the obsessive scrutiny." Speaking about the same, Gay wrote,

"Those who had relentlessly campaigned to oust me since the fall often trafficked in lies and ad hominem insults, not reasoned argument. They recycled tired racial stereotypes about Black talent and temperament. They pushed a false narrative of indifference and incompetence.”

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When Gay attended a House Education Committee hearing in December to investigate college antisemitism, the leaders of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) accompanied her. This event led to the issue surrounding Gay.

The campaign against Claudine Gay, which featured well-known Harvard donors, had been focused for the past month on charges of plagiarism and antisemitism in her academic work.

The allegations were based on her remarks in a congressional hearing on antisemitism on college campuses, which drew harsh criticism. The issues also stemmed from several instances in her academic work that reportedly bore similarities to other scholars' works without proper citations.