Harvard’s governing board announced Tuesday it determined that the school’s embattled president, Claudine Gay, did not engage in “research misconduct.”
Gay was accused of plagiarizing after the conservative website The Washington Free Beacon published a story highlighting multiple instances where Gay’s writing in four academic articles matched up with other academic articles — some which were written by her former advisers. In some instances, no citation was inserted or quotation marks were not used.
The Harvard Corporation — the board that governs the elite university — said that it was aware of the allegations since October and began an investigation into Gay.
The review, led by what it called “distinguished political scientists” did not affirm these accusations. However, the board found “instances of inadequate citation” and announced that Gay would request “four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications,” according to a statement published by the board.
Calls for Gay to resign mounted after backlash for her statements during a December 5 congressional hearing regarding concerns about antisemitism on university campuses. During questioning, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik asked whether or not calling “genocide of Jews” may be a violation of the school’s code of conduct. Gay replied that it could be, “depending on the context.”
Gay later told the Harvard school paper The Crimson that “calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard” and expressed regret for her previous remarks.
Despite the backlash, there was also a fervent group of Harvard faculty and alumni who asked that the board not remove Gay. On Tuesday, the board affirmed that they would stand in support of Gay.
Right-wing activists, instead, turned their efforts toward highlighting the plagiarism concerns.
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who called on Gay’s resignation because of her congressional testimony leaped into the conversation surrounding claims of plagiarism.
Former ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, also a vocal critic of Gay, demanded that Gay be fired for plagiarism.
Christopher Rufo, an activist who published what he said were examples of plagiarism on his Substack, said on X that the timing of the story was planned with the intention of ousting Gay as Harvard’s president and that it could be the “final nail in Gay’s coffin.”
The Free Beacon, which later published an article with the analysis of “nearly a dozen scholars,” said that most of them concluded that Gay had “violated a core principle of academic integrity.”
However, many of the scholars whose work Gay was accused of lifting spoke to The Crimson and said they did not believe that it constituted plagiarism. One author, Carol M. Swain, told The Crimson that she believes that Gay’s use of her material would “qualify as plagiarism under Harvard’s own rules.” D. Stephen Voss, who taught Gay when she was a student, told the publication that Gay “technically” plagiarized his work, but it was “minor-to-inconsequential.”
