Harvard interim president: ‘I cannot recall a period of comparable tension’

Harvard interim President Alan Garber released a statement to the university community Monday addressing the high tension on campus in the wake of his predecessor’s highly publicized resignation.

“We have been through an extraordinarily painful and disorienting time for Harvard. Since I first arrived here as an undergraduate in 1973, I cannot recall a period of comparable tension on our campus and across our community,” said Garber, who previously served as Harvard’s provost.  

“That tension has been exacerbated by concerns about how we address and combat antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of bias; safeguard free expression; and foster a climate of mutual understanding,” he added.  

Last week, Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned after she was the subject of plagiarism allegations and strong pushback over her testimony at a congressional hearing on antisemitism.

Garber said Gay’s resignation “added a deep sense of loss” to Harvard’s troubles and that he had “great hopes for her presidency.” 

Gay’s departure was celebrated by those upset with her antisemitism testimony and by conservative critics more broadly who see her resignation as a platform for other reforms in higher education.  

After Gay left, she said in an op-ed for The New York Times that she “made mistakes” but the “campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader. This was merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society.” 

In Garber’s statement, he called for the Harvard community in the new year to “bridge the fissures that have weakened our sense of community” said that faculty and students will have to “take a willingness to approach each other in a spirit of goodwill, with an eagerness to listen as well as to speak, and with an appreciation of our common humanity when we encounter passionately held but opposing convictions.” 

“Our task is difficult yet essential, and we have much work ahead of us. Although I regret the circumstances that have me writing to you as your interim president, please know that I will serve with a dedication to the Harvard I know and cherish,” he said.