Here’s a hypothetical scenario. Suppose you knew an unethical Harvard college sophomore who has finished about a dozen classes so far. One of the instructors accuses this student of plagiarism and has the documents to prove it.
They then go in front of an academic review board who then finds many more cases of possible plagiarism. What would the decision of the board be? Would it be a zero for that one assignment? Failure of that one course? Failure of all those courses? Suspension? Expulsion?
Or would it be “full support” and a commendation from the academic review board? With that last comment, I am of course referring to Claudine Gay’s plagiarism charges. The leniency she was given was unthinkable for a student in that position.
So what should Harvard do now? Should it revise its plagiarism standards to the Claudine Gay level, where the following type of copying not just allowed, but apparently “unanimously and unequivocally” supported (images from Harvard Crimson articles on Claudine Gay, links below).
Note that Carol Swain has directly accused Claudine Gay of plagiarism, as there was no attribution at all for Carol Swain’s work.
Or will Harvard instead create a double standard, saying that it was ok for the President of Harvard to make even more egregious copies such as the following phrases, but it’s certainly not ok for students to do so. Note again, there was no citation of the original author’s work:
In summary, Claudine Gay faces charges on 5 research publications. This is way worse than it may originally sound, because according to her CV, she only has 11 published research articles over her entire career (https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/cgay/files/claudinegay_10-2022_0.pdf). I will ignore the obvious question as to why someone with so few publications should be a full professor at Harvard, but instead say that given so few, she obviously had the time to get each one right, but didn’t care enough to do so.
For those that care to see the full extent of Claudine’s plagiarism, here are the relevant Harvard Crimson articles:
Those who are old enough will remember a 70s show called “The Six Million Dollar Man”.
Given how much keeping Claudine Gay will likely cost Harvard in donations due to her mishandling of the Israel-Palestine protests and her plagiarism, perhaps she should be called “The One Billion Dollar Woman”.
First offense, I think they’re called before the honor board, and suspended for a semester or a year, and then allowed back. Second offense, probably expelled.
I cannot rule on the academic value of her work, but clearly, her work was plagiarized, on multiple occasions. She should resign, and barring that, Harvard should force her out.
Seems impossible that her tenure can survive this. Her ability to fundraise, a primary role of her position, is forever compromised by these charges as well as her ‘leadership’ on the Israel-Palestine protests.
Tangentially, over the last several months I have realized that Bill Ackman is among the most powerful people in the world. His calls to suspend and/or clawback donations, to not hire students from certain schools, and the like continue to gain momentum and ‘followers’.
@hebegebe, assuming Gay is out sooner rather than later, I assume her presidential tenure might be the shortest in Harvard’s history, is that right?
The shortest tenure I have seen seems to be two academic years. Harvard does not want to be seen as giving into angry billionaires, so ironically I think she’s most safe as long as they keep complaining.
IMO, her real danger period is when the public furor dies down and she still can’t raise money. Then she might “resign” to “return to her research” or some nonsense like that.
So many people who are not in academia really have absolutely no idea just how bad plagiarism is. It’s as though people think that intellectual property is somehow less important than physical property, and that somehow intellectual honesty is somehow optional.
In academia, everything is intellectual property, and theft of intellectual property and use of this stolen property to advance one’s own career is one of the most egregious academic crimes.
The only academic crime that is worse than plagiarism is when mentors and academic advisors steal the intellectual property of their students, post-docs or junior colleagues. That starts with forgiving plagiarism. After all, if it’s OK to steal from stuff your peers, when you did no work on this at all, why wouldn’t it OK steal stuff that you may have had some input in?
A PhD with plagiarism at the level that it seems that President Gay has committed should be revoked. A person who committed that level of Plagiarism should not be leading an academic institution. People in her position are the people who police academia.
This is no different than discovering that the chief of Boston PD financed his house by burglary.
If the plagiarism in President Gay’s PhD is as extensive as is reported, it should be revoked, and she should be fired from her position.
If she has committed serious plagiarism in her PhD and in her later academic career, her PhD can be revoked, and she can lose her tenured position. So no “return to research” for her. Yes, tenure only protects academics from being fired based on what they publish. It does not protect anybody from being fired over academic malfeasance.
I’m just waiting for the inevitable antisemitic claims…
PS. Other crimes committed in academia, from sexual harassment to murder, are not “academic crimes”.
I just learned that Claudine Gay attempted to stifle the release of the plagiarism information by threatening a defamation lawsuit against the NY Post. Just when I thought my opinion of her couldn’t get any lower, it does.
The story was actually first released by the Washington Free Beacon. This serves as a reminder that press sources, even those we normally don’t agree with, serve a valuable function in a free society.
I also commend the student writers at the Harvard Crimson for carefully confirming the veracity of the Washington Free Beacon article and publishing stories for the entire Harvard community.
You totally missed my point. My point is that, because many Jewish donors have criticized President Gay, if she is forced to retire (by now I should write “when she is forced to retire”), the antisemitic trope of “Jews control Hollywood/Academia/Banks/etc” will be taken out and waved.
