Powerful donors managed to push out Harvard’s Claudine Gay. But at what cost?

‘The core problem is that one of the major jobs of today’s university presidents is to solicit money.’ Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

Amid accusations of plagiarism and continuing outrage among Harvard’s major donors at her alleged failure to condemn Hamas and defend Israel, Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, has announced her resignation.

Harvard’s secretive board of overseers, known as “the Corporation”, apparently insisted on it.