College presidents row: what’s behind the controversy over their antisemitism testimony?

Backlash against presidents of Harvard, UPenn and MIT has led to one resignation and implications for free speech on campus

The controversy over the comments of three elite US university presidents made at a congressional hearing on antisemitism could reverberate far beyond their campuses.

On Tuesday, the Harvard Corporation, the school's highest governing body, announced that the university's president, Claudine Gay, would remain in her post after calls for her removal following the testimony. The news came days after another president, Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, quit following backlash to her responses to combative questioning at the hearing from the New York Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik.