The student-run daily newspaper at Harvard, the Harvard Crimson, reports that in the face of continuing discovery of plagiarism evidence in her published work, Claudine Gay has resigned:

Harvard President Claudine Gay will resign Tuesday afternoon, bringing an end to the shortest presidency in the University's history, according to a person with knowledge of the decision.

It is not clear who will be appointed to serve as interim president.

University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to comment on Gay's decision to step down.

Gay’s resignation — just six months and two days into the presidency — comes amid growing allegations of plagiarism and lasting doubts over her ability to respond to antisemitism on campus after her disastrous congressional testimony Dec. 5. (snip)

The Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — is expected to announce the resignation to Harvard affiliates in an email later today. Gay is also expected to make a statement about the decision.

For the moment, absent denials from Harvard, I will assume that the report is true.

Update: Gay has sent a letter to university constituents confirming her departure.

Yesterday’s detailed anonymous complaint with six new incriminating instances of apparent plagiarism may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. (The Free Beacon clearly highlights the duplication of prose in its coverage of the complaint.)  

However, I have long believed that the price of keeping Gay would be too high for Harvard’s key constituencies to bear, and eventually they would bring enough pressure on the members of the Harvard Corporation to defenestrate Gay.  

Students currently on campus are one key group, and the knowledge that students have been punished, even expelled, for offenses that Gay has been given a pass on poisons the atmosphere. How can Gay be seen as a legitimate leader if she doesn’t meet the standards students are held to?

The 13 members of Harvard Corporation, also known as The President and Fellows of Harvard University, have the formal power to hire and fire presidents. It is widely believed that the richest member among them, billionaire heiress and former Obama administration official Penny Pritzker, led the search committee that hired Gay. The exposure of their choice as an incompetent plagiarist, tolerant of Jew-hatred, is a gigantic blow to their standing. Their over-hasty defense of her record, when plagiarism charges were first vetted, also discredits them. They were entrusted with stewardship of an institution with almost 400 years of history, and they failed to preserve the legacy for which they took responsbility.

Update: From Gay's letter an hour ago:

...after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.

Quite simply, Gay has damaged Harvard’s core mission. No, I don’t mean the education of students or the production of research. Harvard’s real business is the production and maintenance of institutional prestige. That prestige is what attracts students, faculty, donors, campus visitors and other people who bring value and further enhance prestige. And it has taken a gigantic hit.

The news of a 17% decline among those applying for early acceptance was a terrible sign that Harvard would become easier to get into, which could take down its standing as exclusive and snowball into a catastrophic fall in the US News & World Report rankings, and other critical lists of the world’s most prestigious universities.

Harvard casts a wide net when it tallies up its constituencies. It is not just degree holders, aka alumni, who count. There are many people who come to campus for shorter stays. Jeffrey Epstein reportedly donated $6 milion and was granted an office on campus, in one embarrassing example. The journalists who are named Neiman Fellows are one such group widely known to the public, but many other programs exist often for a few weeks, usually leading to a certificate if not a diploma. And then there are members of countless advisory boards for every single program on campus.

These constituents are global in scope. This was brought home for me first time I attended a Harvard alumni reception in Tokyo, in the 1970s, when the first person I spoke with was the Saudi ambassador to Japan. The fact that elites from all over the world identify with Harvard is one of its key competitive advantages over other institutions.

Virtually everyone with a Harvard connection has either avoided mentioning it or has experienced reactions ranging from skepticism to outright mockery over their affiliation in recent weeks. They are not happy campers, and they ultimately have power over the 13 members of the Harvard Corporation, who do not want to be remembered as the people who ruined an institution deeply valued by its members. 

Update:

Gray blames racism for criticism. Sigh. More evidence of her inadequate character for the job to which she was appinted:

...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.   

Disclosure: I have 3 graduate degrees from Harvard and taught in all 3 fields in the the Facuty of Business Administration and Facuty of Arts and Sciences.