The chancellor of Harvard finally resigned, Claudine Gay, following the intense criticism she received in recent weeks over her ambiguous statements on issues related to anti-Semitism at the university and accusations of plagiarism on her part.

With her resignation, Gay becomes the shortest-tenured chancellor at the institution, according to the university’s newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, which had previously announced the 53-year-old professor’s departure.

In her letter, Claudine Gay argues that he received threats and racist attacks. “It was complicated to see doubts about my commitment to confront hate and respect academic rigor (…) and terrifying to be the subject of personal attacks and threats, fueled by racism,” Claudine Gay said in her letter. “It is with a heavy heart but with a deep love for Harvard that I am writing to announce that I will be stepping down as president,” he added.

The 53-year-old Gay, born in New York to a family of Haitian immigrants, is a professor of political science. Last July she became the first black chancellor of Harvard University, which was founded in Cambridge, Boston, 368 years ago. After the Hamas attack on Israel and the war that broke out in the Gaza Strip, Gay was accused of not properly handling the problems of anti-Semitism recorded at the university.

Wealthy donors and voices from both the Republican and Democratic camps have denounced the rise in incidents of anti-Semitism on campuses and criticized the very weak reactions of the rectory authorities, against the background of repeated criticism by conservatives against American universities, which they judge to adopt too left-wing views.

More than 70 members of the US Congress in Washington, majority Republicans, called for Gay’s resignation, following a parliamentary hearing before the House of Representatives on December 5, where her answers regarding the condemnation of anti-Semitism were deemed ambiguous and heavily criticized. Besides, he was recently accused by a conservative website of plagiarism.

Gay is the second university president of the so-called Ivy League (includes eight top US universities) to resign. It was preceded, in December, by Elizabeth Magill of UPenn (Philadelphia), who also received heavy criticism for the statements she made at the same parliamentary hearing.