College administrators and academics have said sexism played a role in the impeachment of the presidents of Harvard and Penn after they — along with another female college president — were hauled before Congress, where they refused to denounce anti-Semitism on campus to set.
Claudine Gay and Liz Magill were both forced to resign after being recalled to Congress on December 5. When asked if “calling for the genocide of Jews” violated their universities’ codes of conduct, they refused to say no, but said it was context. -dependent.
Now academics and university administrators have suggested that sexism played a role in their ouster.
New York University professor emerita Madeline Heilman told the New York Times’ Kate Zernike, “If they both start off well and one guy does poorly, people come up with excuses and other reasons before seeing it as an indication of what he is like.
“For a woman, it fits the stereotype of not being qualified. What is considered a mistake for men is a deadly mistake for a woman.”
Dr. Claudine Gay, Liz Magill, Dr. Pamela Nadell and Dr. Sally Kornbluth testified before Congress on December 5
The four presidents called before Congress – Gay, Magill, Kornbluth and Minouche Shafik, who did not attend due to a previous commitment – are all women. Dr. Pamela Nadell, the former president of the Association of Jewish Studies, also testified.
All had been in their roles for less than two years.
Dr. Nancy Andrews, the first female dean of Duke Medical School, told the Times: “Four female presidents, all new to their roles, far too new to have shaped the culture on their campuses, and to appear before Congress? Of course there is a pattern.
‘The question is: what is the agenda? Is it to take down women leaders? To attack elite universities based on perceived vulnerability? To further a political cause?’
Neither the male president of Yale nor the University of Chicago, where pro-Palestinian groups also protested, were called to attend the hearing.
In an interview with the Yale Daily News the day after the congressional hearing, Yale President Peter Salovey said he was “not sure” why he had not been asked to attend.
When asked how he would have answered the question, he said he wanted to “look at the entire testimony first.”
He later updated his response to say, “What was asked of other university leaders during recent Congressional hearings has raised questions about our policies and practices. Let me be clear when I say that we strongly reject discrimination and prejudice at Yale.”
A group known as ‘Fire Claudine Gay’ deployed a panel truck with an electronic billboard outside the Harvard Campus with a message protesting Gay
Author Kate Zernike asked in a New York Times article, “Would a man have been treated the same way?”
Dr. Andrews reviewed federal discrimination complaints filed against colleges and universities since early 2022.
She reportedly found that 80 percent of complaints were filed against institutions led by women, despite only 30 percent of presidents being women.
Nancy Gertner, a Harvard law professor, told the Times, “If there had been three men at that table, it wouldn’t have gone from ‘poor performance’ to ‘you’re not qualified.’
Kate Zernike – who has written about gender discrimination in academia in her recent book The Exceptions – said in the Times: ‘Yes, there may have been plagiarism, in the case of Dr. Gay, and the Question of Race to Be Considered.
“Yes, the president sounded so lawyerly, so coached, during the hearing: Why couldn’t they have more passionately expressed their opposition to slogans encouraging genocide?
“But then there are suspicions in the other direction: If it was about security, why didn’t Congress summon the (male) presidents of Yale and the University of Chicago, where pro-Palestinian groups occupy offices and administrative offices?
“Underlying all the conversations was the most maddening, familiar and ultimately unanswerable question of all: Would a man have been treated the same way?”
Magill resigned shortly after the Dec. 5 hearing, saying her comments were taken out of context, but Gay stood her ground.
Gay said, “Some have confused the right to free speech with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students.
Students flew a “Harvard Hates Jews” sign over campus on December 7, two days after Gay’s testimony
Students protest against Israel at Harvard University on October 14. Many Jewish students said the extensive protests and the university’s response to them made them feel unsafe.
“Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group, are despicable, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held accountable,” he said. them during the meeting. time.
The Harvard Corporation supported her and resisted increasing calls for her resignation.
Since the hearing on December 5, she has been accused of plagiarism throughout her academic career.
On December 12, after the first allegations of plagiarism came to light, Harvard again supported her, insisting that she had been investigated and cleared.
Critics said it was a sham investigation that was opened and closed too quickly.