After graduating, Gay was an assistant professor, and later tenured associate professor, in Stanford's Department of Political Science from 2000 to 2006. In the 2003–2004 academic year, she was a fellow at the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.
Administrative positions In 2015, Gay was named the dean of social sciences at the
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and the Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government and of African and African-American Studies. In 2018, she was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Gay's priorities during her tenure as dean included
anti-racism initiatives and increasing racial diversity on campus among students and faculty. In August 2020, FAS hired its first associate dean of
diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Following the June 2023
Supreme Court decision in
Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which held that race-based
affirmative action programs in college admissions were unconstitutional, Gay said that Harvard would "comply with the court's decision, but it does not change our values." During her deanship, Gay disciplined multiple Harvard professors for alleged sexual misconduct. She removed
emeritus status from retired professors
Jorge I. Domínguez and
Gary Urton, and placed professors
John Comaroff and
Roland G. Fryer Jr. on leave, after they each faced accusations of sexual harassment. Gay also sanctioned professor
Martin Nowak for "unprofessional behavior" in his contacts with sex offender
Jeffrey Epstein.
Harvard Law School professor and
Winthrop House faculty dean
Ronald Sullivan faced student protests in spring 2019 after joining the legal defense team for
Harvey Weinstein, who was on
trial for rape. Gay called Sullivan's response to the controversy "insufficient", citing his "special responsibility" as house dean for the well-being of Winthrop residents.
Harvard College dean
Rakesh Khurana decided not to renew Sullivan's contract as Winthrop dean, a decision criticized by the
American Civil Liberties Union. In 2019, Gay said that Harvard would seek to hire multiple
ethnic studies professors, hiring three in 2022. After protests condemning Harvard's denial of tenure to
Lorgia García Peña, a scholar of ethnic studies, Gay said in January 2020 that she would initiate a review of the FAS tenure process. The review, released in October 2021, stated that Harvard's tenure process was largely "structurally sound", but also found "a lack of trust in, and a low morale, about the tenure process" among faculty. As dean, Gay oversaw the 2021 launch of a new billion-dollar
Science and Engineering Complex on Harvard's Allston campus, including a PhD program in
quantum engineering. In early 2021, Gay announced that the cost of the FAS's core academic commitments were greater than its revenues and began processes to reduce expenses. At the end of that year, the FAS reported a surplus of $51 million, an increase from the projected deficit of $112 million. In addition to her positions at Harvard, Gay served as a vice president of the
Midwest Political Science Association from 2014 to 2017 and as a trustee of Phillips Exeter from 2017 to 2023. She took office on July 1, 2023, becoming the university's first Black president.
Congressional hearing on antisemitism After the October 7, 2023
Hamas-led attack on Israel, Gay faced criticism, including from former Harvard president
Lawrence Summers, When asked, by
Elise Stefanik, if a hypothetical call for the
genocide of
Jewish people would qualify as a violation of Harvard's code of conduct, Gay responded: "It can be, depending on the context." She later clarified: "Antisemitic rhetoric, when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation — that is actionable conduct and we do take action." Gay's remarks were broadly criticized in the media. In response, Gay apologized and said that some people "have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students". A letter signed by 70 congressional representatives called for all three presidents to resign.
Liz Magill had already been under pressure within the University of Pennsylvania, and resigned from the presidency the following week. On December 11, more than 700 of Harvard's 2,452 faculty members signed a letter opposing calls for Gay to be removed as university president. The executive committee of Harvard's Alumni Association stated it "unanimously and unequivocally" supported Gay's leadership, praising her "for protecting academic freedom and the right of all students to voice their opinions". On December 12, the board of the Harvard Corporation said they "unanimously" supported Gay's leadership, adding: "President Gay has apologized for how she handled her congressional testimony and has committed to redoubling the University's fight against antisemitism."
Plagiarism investigations Soon after the December congressional hearing, Gay was accused of plagiarism by conservative activist
Christopher Rufo and journalist
Aaron Sibarium, and by an anonymous complaint.
Carol M. Swain accused Gay of a failure to credit Swain's work from her 1993 book,
Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress, as well as Swain's article "Women and Blacks in Congress: 1870–1996" that was published in 1997. Harvard had been contacted by the
New York Post in October 2023 for comment on a planned story about 27 "possible examples of plagiarism", and called the Post's allegations "demonstrably false", threatening to sue the newspaper for libel. In response, Gay said she stood behind the integrity of her work and requested an outside review of it. Analyses by
The Harvard Crimson and
CNN contested Harvard's statement, finding that Gay had likely violated the university's policies on plagiarism and academic integrity. Gay requested seven corrections to add citations and quotation marks to her dissertation and two of her articles. Academic William Arighi, writing for the
Journal of Academic Freedom, later characterized the events as "an attempt not at promoting truth but at grinding a political ax". In response to the allegations, the
congressional committee that held the hearing on antisemitism said it would examine Gay's work, and asked the university to produce related communications and documentation.
Resignation On January 2, 2024, Gay announced she was resigning her position. In an email to affiliates, Gay wrote, "it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor – two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am—and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by
racial animus." In an op-ed the following day, Gay wrote that she "made mistakes", but her invitation to testify before Congress about antisemitism was a "well-laid trap", and the campaign to oust her was "[a] skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society". ==Personal life==