Harvard president resigns amid plagiarism scandal --With allegations piling up, Claudine Gay accused her opponents of racism as she stepped down | 2 Jan 2024 | Claudine Gay announced in a statement on Tuesday that she has resigned from her post as Harvard University's president. Gay's tenure was the shortest in the prestigious institution's history, and ended with almost 50 accusations of academic theft. Over the last six weeks, Gay has been accused of almost 50 instances of plagiarism throughout her academic career. The scandal kicked off when conservative activist Chris Rufo discovered evidence that Gay had lifted material verbatim from other scholars for her 1997 dissertation, titled Taking Charge: Black Electoral Success and the Redefinition of American Policies. Conservative pundits had ridiculed Gay as a "diversity hire," and accused her of building a "diversity empire" on campus using the university’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) office to denigrate white students, rename buildings which were named after white men, and push "critical race theory" workshops and seminars.