Former Harvard head said she was called ‘N-word,’ got death threats

WASHINGTON: Former Harvard President Claudine Gay said she received emailed death threats and was called the “N-word” countless times prior to resigning after her congressional testimony on antisemitism and plagiarism allegations.

Gay made the comments in a New York Times opinion piece on Thursday, a day after she yielded to pressure from Harvard’s Jewish community and members of Congress to step down over the Dec 5 congressional hearing and allegations about her academic work. “My character and intelligence have been impugned. My commitment to fighting antisemitism has been questioned. My inbox has been flooded with invective, including death threats. I’ve been called the N-word more times than I care to count,” Gay said in the piece titled “What Just Happened at Harvard Is Bigger Than Me”.