Rick Snyder, a former governor of Michigan, removed himself from an upcoming fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School amid a backlash over his role in a water contamination crisis in one the nation’s most impoverished cities .

The choice of Mr. Snyder as a fellow by the prestigious school of government inflamed Mr. Snyder’s critics after it was announced on Friday, and nearly 7,000 people had signed an online petition since Monday, the day the yearlong fellowship was to have begun.

Opponents in Michigan as well as those in the Harvard community said he deserved much of the blame for the environmental emergency in Flint, Mich., which the city has been dealing with since 2014. Mr. Snyder told a congressional panel in 2016 that “we all failed the families of Flint.”

[Flint’s water crisis started five years ago. It’s not over.]

Mr. Snyder, a Republican who was governor from 2011 to 2019, cited the current political climate in announcing that he had declined the opportunity.