The New York Post revealed that in October, it confronted Harvard about possible plagiarism in a few of President Claudine Gay’s works, including her Ph.D. dissertation.
The public learned about the plagiarism allegations on Tuesday thanks to School choice advocate Christopher Rufo, American Conservative contributing editor Chris Brunet, and Washington Free Beacon reporter Aaron Sibarium.
Harvard’s governing board admitted the school investigated allegations in October when it affirmed support for Gay as Harvard’s president. It refused to remove her despite not taking action against antisemitism on the campus or opposing and condemning it in front of Congress.
So, the school knew about this before Rufo, Brunet, and Sibarium published everything yesterday.
From The New York Post:
The Post contacted the university on October 24, asking for comment on more than two dozen instances in which Gay’s words appeared to closely parallel words, phrases or sentences in published works by other academics.The 27 instances were in two academic papers published in two peer-reviewed journals between 2011 and 2017, and an article in an academic magazine in 1993.The Post was sent the material anonymously and had conducted our own analysis before asking Harvard to comment on whether Gay had plagiarized or failed to properly cite other academics’ work. We have continued to investigate since.When The Post brought the allegations to Harvard, Jonathan Swain, its senior executive director of media relations and communications, asked for more time to review Gay’s work.A day later Swain, who was part of the Biden-Harris transition team and a one-time Hillary Clinton aide, said he would “get back in touch over the next couple of days.”
Swain never got back to the Post.
On October 27, a Virginia-based attorney, Thomas Clare, sent the Post a 15-page letter.
Clare described “himself as defamation counsel for Harvard University and Gay”:
The letter contained comments from academics whose work Gay was alleged to have improperly cited — even though the political scientists’ review could only just have begun.Harvard has still not said what works Gay is seeking to have corrected, and whether her dissertation will be corrected. it did not respond to a further set of questions from The Post Tuesday.The dates on the three works reviewed by The Post ranged from 1993, when Gay was a post-graduate student, until 2017 when she was Dean of Social Science at the school’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.Gay, 53, assumed office as Harvard’s first black president earlier this year.
Gay told the Boston Globe, “I stand by the integrity of my scholarship. Throughout my career, I have worked to ensure my scholarship adheres to the highest academic standards.”
I cannot people have defended the blatant plagiarism:
Professor Lawrence Bobo, Harvard College’s dean of social science, is among those whom Gay was accused of plagiarizing in the Sunday posts. Bobo said Monday, “I find myself unconcerned about these claims as our work was explicitly acknowledged.”Professor Gary King, a leading Harvard political scientist and one of Gay’s dissertation advisers whom she was also accused of plagiarizing in the Sunday posts, called the allegations, “false and absurd.”Katherine Tate, a Brown University professor of political science who was on Gay’s dissertation committee, said on Monday that she supports Gay and wants her to remain president of Harvard. But she said some of the passages highlighted in the Sunday night posts amounted to plagiarism.”I think that it is an example of some plagiarism, yes,” Tate said. “But I think it’s a really minor example.” In the context of the dissertation, Tate said, it was obvious she was not stealing the ideas of other researchers, but rather referencing them.
I’m already tired of people abusing the word “context.” Gay and the other university presidents used the word a lot to avoid accountability for not doing anything about the antisemitism on their campuses.
Anne Williamson, A University of Miami in Ohio political science professor, said Gay’s 2017 paper “A Room for One’s Own? The Partisan Allocation of Affordable Housing” plagiarized material from her 2011 paper:
Williamson told The Post she was “angry” when she read the excerpts.“It does look like plagiarism to me,” she said. “If they are going to do what they did, then I should be cited as a reference. My first reaction is shock. The second reaction is puzzlement. There was a way to draw from my paper. All she had to do is give me a credit.”
Carol Swain, author of Black Faces, Black Interests, confirmed to Rufo that Gay plagiarized her material.
Swain also lashed out at Gay on NewsNation.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY