Editorial: Can Harvard regain luster after Claudine Gay scandals?

Harvard still doesn’t get it.

Although embattled President Claudine Gay finally resigned Tuesday after antisemitism and plagiarism scandals, she will return to the embrace of the Harvard faculty.

Apparently, failing to condemn calls for genocide against Jews is OK, as long as you’re not in charge. Ditto for accusations of plagiarism, which as of Tuesday are reportedly over two dozen, thanks to six fresh allegations against Gay.

Through it all, the Harvard Corporation circled the wagons and insisted that Gay would stay as president.

What was the final straw, we wonder?

As deep-pocketed donors fled, taking their millions with them, Harvard faculty doubled down – hundreds wrote a letter in support of Gay. Early admission applications took a nosedive, but the university didn’t budge.

When allegations of plagiarism surfaced, Harvard brushed them aside. Gay was allowed to “update” her work to add missing citations.

“On December 9,” the Harvard Corporation said in a statement, “the Fellows reviewed the results, which revealed a few instances of inadequate citation. While the analysis found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications.”

Nothing to see here.

Outrage and backlash continued, but Harvard was having none of it.

Calls for Gay’s resignation came from Congress, alumni and, as The Hill reported, current Harvard students.

Two wrote a Dec. 30 op-ed in the school paper, The Harvard Crimson, in which they argued Harvard’s president has a “deeply challenging managerial job” and that she failed.

“Our doubts began in the wake of the attacks on Oct. 7. Without question, Gay botched her public response to the crisis,” the students wrote. “Now, on top of these blunders, it has surfaced that Gay plagiarized portions of multiple academic papers. The situation seems to worsen with every passing week.”

Was student dissent the straw that broke Harvard’s back? Was it the vision of dollar signs flying away? Or did the powers that be finally realize that the efforts to protect the brand were, in fact, harming it?

Finally, Gay stepped down.

“After consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual,” she wrote in her resignation letter.

Harvard has some work to do to repair its tarnished reputation. They need to ensure that Jewish students are safe and respected on campus. They need to reassure students that the rules against plagiarism that apply to them also apply to academic leaders.

How can they do that if Gay remains on the faculty?

Harvard must win back donors and applicants with substantive actions that reflect high moral and academic standards. The future of the university depends on it.