The academic world can’t let Harvard abstain from the pursuit of truth

In Claudine Gay’s resignation letter from her role as president of Harvard University, published in the New York Times on January 2, she expresses hope that the Harvard community remembers her short term as one characterized by “not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education.” But in her op-ed, published a day later, she claims that her resignation was the result of the work of “demagogues” to “undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence, truth.” Though Gay paints her removal from office as a tactic to stop such a campaign from gaining further traction, her refusal to admit any guilt and the Harvard Corporation’s failure to note any particular reason for the resignation suggests that her presidency should be defined by a clear abandonment of the tenets to which she and Harvard claim to have committed.

By permitting external actors the capacity to affect the internal affairs of the University, the governing bodies of Harvard revealed their lack of commitment to any ideal — moral or academic. If a university cannot stand behind the truth, how can we expect it to teach any of its students to do so and uphold the core value of all academic inquiry? Harvard’s failure is stunning, and it holds a crucial lesson for peer institutions — Princeton included. As universities continue to abandon their commitment to engaging in critical research and thought to determine truth — the core purpose and justification for a university — Princeton must act, both internally and publicly, in defense of this goal, and hire accordingly.

No one at Harvard has justified a rationale for Gay’s resignation. This reveals a difficult truth: Harvard holds no position about the veracity of any recent issues pertaining to Gay, but they are prepared to take action anyway. Since early October, Gay has made grave errors in her treatment of the Jewish students at Harvard, but these choices don’t seem to be reasons for her resignation. Neither she nor the Harvard Corporation seem to have thought that the harmful effects of her late and ambiguous response to Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7 indicated a lacking ability to lead the campus, nor did they believe that her refusal to commit to ensuring the safety of Jewish students at Harvard in the face of chants for the genocide of their people at a Congressional hearing constituted an intractable problem for her presidency. The Harvard Corporation supported her after the latter took place, and Gay spoke and acted with the intent to stick around.

Since then, no further communication has indicated a reversal in this policy or a regret of these actions. Despite a partial acknowledgment of this poor showing for the Jewish community — actions which directly went against a core value of her presidency, to engage in “resistance” in Harvard’s “long history of exclusion,” a commitment which should and must include Jews — Gay denies that her actions make her unfit to be Harvard’s president. Indeed, she hardly admits any wrongdoing. Instead of owning up to her failure to uphold her own standards of inclusion during her congressional testimony, she says that she “fell into a well-laid trap.” This is language unbecoming of such an experienced scholar, as it both admits her inability to sufficiently communicate her ideas and goals to the outside world, and indicates a lack of respect for the operations of the American government, especially in its dealings with issues as abhorrent as antisemitism.

Even now, Gay does not see her mistakes as anything but minor, and the Corporation makes no attempt to change this narrative. So what, then, made resignation appropriate? The New York Times reports that it was ultimately the allegations of plagiarism committed by Gay that caused the Corporation to encourage her departure. Yet the fact that Gay has retained her tenure suggests that no one at Harvard takes seriously the proposal that she should be considered as anything but a stellar scholar. This leaves us with only one conclusion: Gay doesn’t think she has done much that is objectively wrong, and the Harvard Corporation agrees.

The problem is not Gay, in their minds, but the outside attention upon her — what else are we to make of the only reason she gives for her resignation in her letter to campus? In her own words, she is leaving so that Harvard “can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.” In other words, it’s this: online actors like Bill Ackman and Christopher Rufo have made Harvard look bad, and we can’t handle that. While she and the Corporation have agreed that these characterizations are inaccurate, apparently the truth isn’t worth the fight.

The Harvard Corporation had two good options: either Gay was unfit to be president, or she was being bullied and lied about. After intense interrogation and critical thought, they should have picked the truth and stood behind it. After all, isn’t that what they expect their students and faculty to do — to pursue truth? Yet they buckled in the face of the difficulty of that task, and picked the worst option: taking action without committing to a justification. This is worrying for the academic community, and the mission of education at large. Bret Stephens wrote last week that “Harvard also sets the tone for the rest of American higher [education] — and for public attitudes toward it.” The debacle at Harvard screams to anyone listening that what many know as the beacon of enlightening academic inquiry cannot uphold its core purpose of struggling to find out what is true in the world, and thus lacks one altogether.

Princeton should be worried about this trend. Public trust in higher education has continued to fall in 2023. Presidential candidate Donald Trump wants to tax “large private university endowments” like Princeton’s. And why shouldn’t he? Absent a commitment to some value, universities like Princeton and Harvard simply accumulate huge amounts of wealth to service an elite few. When so many are failing to commit to the very reason higher education exists in the first place, Princeton must be exemplary in its scholarship, in the campus culture it encourages, and in the individuals it hires both to fulfill its mission, and loudly and boldly justify its existence so others may do the same.

Princeton is entering a time of change. Dean of the College Jill Dolan announced her departure at the beginning of last semester, following turnover in a number of “high-profile” roles as well as the departure of many administrators. As the University fills Dolan’s position, and others throughout the administration, it must keep the lesson of Harvard and Gay in mind. To protect the excellent scholarship on campus, it must elevate individuals who will fight for the truth when it is challenged, and protect the right of students of all backgrounds and commitments to do the same. Employees of the University at every administrative and faculty level, as well as those individuals who rule Princeton on the Board of Trustees, must be prepared to uphold and defend our core educational mission.

Although Gay once called Princeton “cold, traditional, and austere” and noted that she transferred from the school after her first year because “everybody at Princeton was already middle-aged,” perhaps we can use these qualities to our advantage. Princeton must maintain its sober commitment to the most valuable traditions of the academic pursuit: the “truth-seeking enterprise.”

In her inaugural address, Gay encouraged the Harvard community to be courageous in their commitment to truthful inquiry, whatever obstacles might come their way. “Debate and the inclusion of diverse viewpoints and experiences,” she said, “are not always easy to live with. They can be a recipe for discomfort, fired in the heat of social media and partisan rancor. And discomfort can weaken our resolve and make us vulnerable to a rhetoric of control and containment that has no place in the academy. That is when we must summon the courage to be Harvard. To love truth enough to endure the challenge of truth-seeking and truth-telling.” Ultimately, I suppose Gay could not find that courage and commitment within herself. But the folks at Princeton, and around the rest of the academic world, must strive to do better.

Abigail Rabieh is a junior in the history department from Cambridge, Mass. Very grateful that she left her hometown for college, she is the Public Editor at the ‘Prince’ and can be reached via email at arabieh@princeton.edu or on X at @AbigailRabieh.