Harvard University was swarmed by truck billboards calling for the school's president to resign following a controversial House hearing regarding antisemitism.
The school's president, Claudine Gay faced calls to be fired on Sunday a few days after making remarks to Congress. The comments were in regard to whether or not calls for the genocide of Jews break the university's code of conduct.
Calls for Harvard University President To Resign
The privately-funded truck billboards read, "FIRE GAY" and had photographs of the university's president when she appeared before Congress last Tuesday. One of the vehicles also circled the campus while another was positioned at the main gate and blared Gay's exchange with Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik.
The private funder of the trucks is also planning to deploy a plane over Harvard University this week with a banner that reads, "HARVARD - STOP JEW HATRED." A source who deployed the trucks at Penn and Harvard said, "One down, two to go," as per Fox News.
The situation comes as three university leaders, Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, Gay, and Sally Kornbluth of Massachusetts Institute of Technology came under fire last week. It was when they appeared before Congress and were questioned about their handling of antisemitism within their respective universities.
Stefanik had an especially fiery exchange with the three individuals as she pressed them to answer if "calling for the genocide of Jews" violates the respective schools' codes of conduct. Talking specifically to Gay, the Republican asked if such calls violated Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment.
In response, the Harvard president said that such calls can be considered in violation of the code of conduct "depending on the context." When pressed for a yes or no answer, Gay went on to say that antisemitic speech that crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, and intimidation is actionable and is addressed by the school.
The truck billboards that called for Gay's removal from her position came after Magill was forced out as president of the University of Pennsylvania. Billionaire donors have also warned that they would withdraw funding for the elite colleges until all three presidents were replaced, according to the Daily Mail.
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Controversial House Hearing
On Saturday, Stefanik said that the situation is only the beginning of addressing the pervasive rot of antisemitism that she argued has destroyed the most "prestigious" higher education institutions in the United States.
After Magill announced her departure as the president of UPenn, the chair of the university's board of trustees, Scott Bok, also resigned. The latter's vice chair, Julie Beren Platt, was named interim chair of the board.
Amid mounting criticism, Gay issued an apology during an interview on Thursday that she got so caught up in her heated exchange with Stefanik that she failed to properly denounce threats of violence against Jewish students.
The Harvard president apologized and said that she should have had the presence of mind to return to her guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against the Jewish community have no place at Harvard, said the Associated Press.
Related Article : UPenn President Elizabeth Magill Resigns
