COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — In his first public comments since becoming Ohio State’s president a week ago, Ted Carter showed his support for football coach Ryan Day and denounced antisemitism.

Carter is continuing to settle in as the university’s 17th president. Although he began work on Jan. 1, Monday marked his first day with students in class and the first time he spoke publicly with news media.

When asked about calls for Day to be fired, Carter’s first instinct was to mention the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry. Much of the criticism against Day is due to his 1-3 record against the Wolverines, who are scheduled to play Monday night in the national championship game against Washington.

“I have a great respect for the biggest rivalries that exist in the country,” Carter said. “As somebody that ran the Naval Academy, the Army-Navy game is as big a rivalry, second to the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry.”

Overall, Carter was supportive of Day. He maintained that Day is still included in his plans for the team’s future.

“I think Ryan Day would also say that our goals are to win the Big Ten and a national championship every year. We didn’t meet that. But Ryan Day runs a fantastic program, he’s our coach, I’m proud that he’s our coach, and he will continue to be our coach.”

In his five full years coaching the Buckeyes, Day has won the Big Ten twice and played for the national championship once, when Ohio State lost to Alabama in 2021.

When asked if Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh should be fired over a scouting scandal, Carter kept his opinion close to the vest.

“I have no comment on that,” Carter said with a smile.

When the topic changed to antisemitism on campus, Carter took a serious tone. Recently, former University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill and former Harvard president Claudine Gay lost their positions over comments on antisemitism they made at a congressional hearing in December, with the latter also facing accusations of plagiarism. He began by denouncing a terrorist attack by Hamas that took place in Israel on Oct. 7.

“The terrorist acts that happened on the weekend of October 7th were despicable,” Carter said. “I think this university has been very straightforward on speaking out against that.”

Watch: Ted Carter on antisemitism

Although Carter said Ohio State will fight to protect the First Amendment, there will be limits to what types of speech are tolerated.

“We are also going to be supportive of First Amendment and free speech here on this campus,” Carter said. “But we also won’t tolerate hate speech, won’t tolerate antisemitism, Islamophobia or any type of bigotry, harassment, or any type of incitement to violence. And we will hold to that.”

Carter said Ohio State has to have a moral backbone when speaking out. He also said that he doubts he would have answered the way that Gay and Magill did in their congressional hearings.

“It’s never going to be acceptable to call for genocide of anybody,” Carter said. “Our job in this country is to speak out and take care of the people that can’t take care of themselves. So, I feel bad for what happened in the testimony with those presidents. I don’t know that I would have answered those questions anywhere near the same. We have to have a moral backbone when it comes to doing the right thing.”

Carter replaces Dr. Kristina Johnson, who served as president from 2020 until she stepped down in May 2023.