Earlier this month, Harvard University president Claudine Gay survived the calls for her ouster amid the fallout of testimony she and two other university leaders gave at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism. Now she is facing another wave of criticism and calls to resign following allegations she plagiarized in her 1997 doctoral dissertation and multiple academic articles she has authored over her career. The university’s governing board has publicly backed Gay, who is the first Black president of Harvard, and cleared her of any “research misconduct.” That hasn’t stopped the scandal from growing, however. Below is what we know about this still developing story.
That depends on who you are asking. At the very least — as Harvard has acknowledged — Gay has on multiple occasions published academic papers with “inadequate citations.” Others have accused her of intentional plagiarism and accused the school of not holding its president to the same standards that it does its students.
The allegations surfaced in — and have been largely driven by — conservative media following the campus antisemitism uproar in early December. Conservative activist Christopher Rufo and writer Christopher Brunet highlighted several instances of language lifted from other papers in Gay’s 1997 dissertation. Soon after, the Washington Free Beacon reported additional examples of paraphrasing and quoting others without proper attribution in three more academic papers authored by Gay. The New York Post then reported that it had begun investigating the alleged plagiarism in late October — and accused Harvard of covering up its own subsequent investigation into the matter after being contacted by the Post. More instances of un- or poorly attributed language were uncovered by CNN, the New York Times, and by the independent panel Harvard commissioned to review her academic papers. As the New York Times explains, there is now a pile of examples of problematic work:
The plagiarism allegations against Dr. Gay, which span her dissertation and about half of the 11 journal articles listed on her résumé, range from brief snippets of technical definitions to lightly paraphrased summaries of other scholars’ work without quotation marks or direct citation. In one example that drew ridicule, Dr. Gay appeared to borrow exact phrases from the acknowledgments section of another author’s book to thank her mentor and family in the acknowledgments section of her own dissertation. She has not been accused of more egregious violations, such as falsifying data, or stealing another scholar’s original research or ideas.
After the allegations first surfaced, President 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.”
The Harvard Corporation, the university’s 12-person governing board, released a statement on December 12 declaring its unanimous support for the embattled president. The board’s statement referenced both Gay’s Congressional testimony and the plagiarism allegations:
With regard to President Gay’s academic writings, the University became aware in late October of allegations regarding three articles. At President Gay’s request, the Fellows promptly initiated an independent review by distinguished political scientists and conducted a review of her published work. On December 9, the Fellows reviewed the results , which revealed a few instances of inadequate citation. While the analysis found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications.
The Washington Post adds that the review departed from protocol:
The inquiry was not led by the research integrity units at the university or its Faculty of Arts and Sciences — to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, according to school officials, since those offices report to the president. Instead, a subcommittee of the board and a panel of three political scientists unaffiliated with Harvard considered the allegations. The initial review included works questioned by the New York Post, as well as all of Gay’s published work from 1993 to 2019. It did not include her 1997 dissertation.
On December 20, Harvard announced that Gay would submit additional requests for corrections to her dissertation, and that a board subcommittee had reviewed an additional complaint containing four new allegations of plagiarism, but found them to be without merit.
Here’s how CNN unpacked the Harvard Corporation’s initial statement supporting Gay:
Harvard’s policy states that research misconduct includes “fabrication, falsification and plagiarism” and punishment can include suspension, leave without pay or even termination. However, Harvard’s policy also states that misconduct does not include “honest error.” And the policy says that for misdeeds to be considered misconduct, it must meet three criteria:
1) There must be a “significant departure from accepted practices” within the research community.
2) The misdeeds must have been done “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly.”
3) The allegations must be “proven by preponderance of the evidence.”
In short, Harvard officials, following their review, have not found that Gay’s mistakes meet the threshold of misconduct.
Harvard’s student handbook also lays out the criteria for plagiarism, stating that quotations “must be placed properly within quotation marks and must be cited fully.”
“Students who, for whatever reason, submit work either not their own or without clear attribution to its sources will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including requirement to withdraw from the College,” the student handbook says.
The GOP-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce was already probing how Harvard has handled alleged campus antisemitism. On December 19, it added the plagiarism scandal with a letter to the Harvard Corportation, as the Harvard Crimson reports:
The letter, signed by committee chairwoman Rep. Virginia A. Foxx (R-N.C.) and sent to Penny S. Pritzker ’81, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — alleged the University applies a lower standard of academic integrity to administrators than students.
“If a university is willing to look the other way and not hold faculty accountable for engaging in academically dishonest behavior, it cheapens its mission and the value of its education,” Foxx wrote in the letter.
University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to comment on the investigation. … Foxx requested Harvard produce “all documents and communications” related to the plagiarism allegations or related to the review by members of the Corporation. The committee also warned that Harvard could lose federal funding if it is found to not have taken the claims of widespread plagiarism against Gay seriously.
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