U.S. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Montgomery) said Harvard president Claudine Gay should have resigned “weeks ago” after the Ivy League executive received backlash from plagiarism allegations and comments made last year about antisemitism.
Gay has been accused of using material from other sources without properly attributing them in her dissertation and around half of the journal articles listed on her resume.
She also received criticism for her testimony before Congress last year, in which she failed to denounce student demonstrations in favor of Palestine following the military conflict that erupted in Israel’s Gaza Strip in October.
Gay resigned on Tuesday, handing over control of one of the most historically prestigious universities to interim president Alan M. Garber.
Nevertheless, she said she would return to Harvard’s faculty. Reports indicate she will likely maintain her nearly $900,000 annual salary.
Britt told Fox News on Tuesday that Gay’s resignation came much later than it should’ve. She labeled Gay’s congressional testimony an “inexcusable failure to immediately and unequivocally state that calls for the genocide of Jews aren’t welcome on her campus.”
Britt also said she was “disgusted by the antisemitism that is being tolerated by so many across our country.”
Other critics chimed in on Gay’s resignation as well, including House Republican Conference chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Accuracy in Media president Adam Guillette, and U.S. Reps. John James (R-Mich.) and Rudy Yakym (R-Ind.). All expressed similar sentiments to Britt.
“This should’ve happened weeks ago,” Britt repeated on Twitter on Tuesday. “Anyone who isn’t willing and able to immediately and unequivocally state that calls for the genocide of Jews aren’t welcome on their campus shouldn’t be a college president anymore.”
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