Harvard president to resign over anti-semitism, plagiarism claims

The president of Harvard University will resign Tuesday, the prestigious US school's student newspaper reported, after she faced criticism over allegations of plagiarism and anti-semitism.

Claudine Gay was criticised in recent months after reports surfaced alleging that she did not properly cite scholarly sources in her academic work.

Gay was also scrutinised after she allegedly declined to "say unequivocally whether calling for genocide of Jews violated Harvard's code of conduct," during testimony to Congress alongside the heads of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania last month.

The university's governing Harvard Corporation backed her after her appearance before Congress, but did criticise her response to the 7 October attack in Israel as the campus community reacted to the war in Gaza.

More than 700 Harvard faculty members had signed a letter supporting Gay.

"Harvard President Claudine Gay will resign Tuesday afternoon, bringing an end to the shortest presidency in the University's history, according to a person with knowledge of the decision," the student-run Harvard Crimson reported.

The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gay, 53, was born in New York to Haitian immigrants and is a professor of political science who in July became the first Black president of 368-year-old Harvard University, in Cambridge, outside Boston.