Harvard leader accused of plagiarism
Critics say GOP-led probe is an attack on schools’ diversity programs
Conservatives in Congress and across the country are escalating their attacks on colleges and universities, which they have long painted broadly as environments that stoke far-left ideology.
A disastrous congressional hearing earlier this month centered on how several elite colleges are handling antisemitism on campus. The college presidents’ rote responses offered the perfect moment to unleash conservative fury with higher education, a view held by a growing share of Republicans.
Colleges and universities have for years been a target of the right. In recent weeks, spurred on by the high-profile resignation of one Ivy League president after their calls for her ouster, conservatives are making the most of a new momentum. They’ve introduced legislation threatening to cut off federal student loans to the richest schools and impose hefty taxes on their endowments.
The latest target is Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, who now faces allegations that she plagiarized others’ work over the course of her yearslong academic career.
So far, the university is standing by Gay. An initial independent review found that her “inadequate citations, while regrettable, did not constitute research misconduct,” spokesperson Jason Newton said in a statement Thursday.
The review did little to satisfy the GOP-led education committee in the House of Representatives, which said Wednesday it will probe plagiarism and academic integrity standards at Harvard.
“An allegation of plagiarism by a top school official at any university would be reason for concern, but Harvard is not just any university,” wrote Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., in the Wednesday letter.
Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University, said he sees the ordeal as indicative of how the “ecosystem of right-wing politics” interacts with education.
Plagiarism allegations surface
Allegations of plagiarism in some of Gay’s work first surfaced well before her Dec. 5 congressional testimony.
According to Harvard’s Newton, a reporter at the conservative-leaning New York Post reached out to the university on Oct. 24 for comment about a story alleging she plagiarized portions of academic articles dating back to the 1990s. A few days later, Gay asked the university’s governing board to conduct an independent review, Newton said.
That panel found no evidence of “intentional deception or recklessness” in Gay’s works. But it did find that Gay made “regrettable” and “inadequate” citation errors. She submitted two corrections on Dec. 14.
Legitimate allegations of plagiarism, a serious concern in the academic community, should be investigated carefully by individual schools and faculty, said Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors.
“The question is why the very public and breathless outrage targeting the first Black female president of Harvard, when we see little public outcry over the many individuals with no experience in higher education administration, or even in academia, being appointed to senior leadership positions with nextto-no scrutiny all over the country?” she said.
Some of the attacks on Gay reference her diversity, equity and inclusion work at Harvard before becoming president. Conservatives at the state and federal level have endeavored to disband diversity, equity and inclusion efforts on college campuses.
As a dean, Gay oversaw initiatives calling on the school to, for example, update visual signage in campus spaces so they displayed more women and people of color. As part of her presidency, Gay now leads Harvard’s Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging.
The current attacks on Gay hint at what critics say are the underlying goals of the plagiarism accusations – part of a larger campaign to undermine the spread of DEI and, by extension, progressive values in higher education.
‘Duplicative language’ in dissertation
On the heels of her widely panned testimony in early December, Gay avoided calls for her ouster as alumni and faculty largely stood by her.
Last week, new plagiarism accusations surfaced by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet. Though the university said some of the claims were meritless, a separate review of Gay’s dissertation – which is decades old – found it included “duplicative language without appropriate attribution,” Newton said.
An administrative subcommittee concluded no further action was required.
Some of the material in question in Gay’s dissertation came from a paper by Stephen Voss, who was a teaching fellow at Harvard when Gay was working on her doctorate. Voss told USA TODAY that Gay did use, almost verbatim, about a paragraph and a half from that paper.
“That falls in my definition of plagiarism,” said Voss, now an associate professor at the University of Kentucky.
“For me to get outraged over an inconsequential paragraph and half,” Voss said, “would make me a jerk.”