Claudine Gay, the former president of Harvard University, was recently given a “Leadership and Courage” award despite her controversial response to anti-Semitism and the plagiarism allegations that surrounded her time in Harvard’s leadership.
The Harvard Black Alumni Society granted the award to the former Harvard president on Sept. 28 at a gathering of the school’s black alumni.
Harvard Black Alumni Society President Monica M. Clark praised Gay and said: “This reunion — all these people who were expressing all this support for her — they were all there. Celebrating her, and clapping for her, and cheering her on.”
One alumnus, Thomas G. Stewart, said: “She’s humble, she’s smart, she’s — fortunately — someone that still is affiliated with the University, and has pledged her support to it to her dying day.”
“She’s in good spirits, and folks should know that,” Stewart added.
Claudine Gay resigned on Jan. 2 following her controversial congressional testimony, during which she failed to unequivocally state that she would condemn rhetoric “calling for the genocide of Jews.”
Gay was asked at the hearing: “At Harvard, does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?” Gay responded: “It can be, depending on the context.”
“I got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures,” Gay told The Harvard Crimson at the time. “What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged.”
Gay was plagued by a controversy regarding her allegedly repeated plagiarism as well.
Hellbound and Down 