Reality can be a bit complex to determine. On the one hand, Claudine Gay wanted to strip Roland Fryer of his tenure. On the other, there are defenders of Roland Fryer who believe he was completely innocent, and was accused primarily because his views didn’t fit the liberal orthodoxy. Here is what Glenn Loury, a Professor at Brown, wrote about him:
It’s no surprise that Claudine Gay would be intimidated by Roland Fryer. There is no question as to his brilliance.
I will take Glenn Loury’s word over pretty much anybody else’s.
Given he admitted to substantial portions the accusations and voluntarily stepped down from other posts because his actions, those defenders are more motivated by their personal agendas than reality.
The very notion that his “brilliance” as an economist has bearing on whether he engaged in inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature with the underlings who accused of sexual misconduct is in itself incredibly offensive and misogynistic.
Wow. It becomes increasingly apparent that this is a vendetta against her personally, and has nothing to do with the honesty or integrity of Gay’s published works.
If this is a non issue, why is the Harvard Crimson investigating? Why is the New York Times reporting on it?
It doesn’t matter who started the conversation. News outlets would not be talking about this if it isn’t newsworthy. They would just ignore it which they aren’t doing.
Not every accusation is a “right wing conspiracy”.
I didn’t say it was a non-issue. The NYTimes and Crimson are reporting on it because the culture war provocateurs driving the issue are good at what they do and found a willing audience, and all demand blood.
This one is. It just so happens that this one is more successful than some of the others.
I don’t believe for a second that news outlets care about the allegations of plagiarism or the nuances of correct citations. They themselves are in the business of burying their own “errors” unless they are forced to issue a retraction, get sued for libel, or are hopelessly embarrassed by a total fabrication of a source, quotation, etc.
I don’t think it’s a right wing conspiracy either.
I think the reality is that you get a bigger bang for the buck criticizing Harvard than you do University of New Haven; you are more likely to get big clicks and eyeballs when you’ve got a reason to have Harvard in your headline, especially if you can make some stupid pun; and Gay handed them an angle on the Anti-Semitism story which is super easy to cover and provides lots of follow up stories, op-ed’s, etc.
There are loads of “hard” Anti-Semitism stories. Professionals in our armed forces who have promotions denied and commanding officers who insist they aren’t prejudiced but they think our fighting forces need to accept Jesus as their personal savior. Yes, this happens. It’s hard to cover. Realtors who won’t show a Jewish couple a home in their desired zip code because “you won’t be comfortable there”. Elementary school principals who treat bullying, swastikas carved into a Jewish students desk, etc. as “kids just being kids”. These are hard stories. It requires a LOT of legwork, time on the ground, multiple interviews, he saids/she saids and a lot of people lawyering up before your reporter even gets off the plane.
The protesters wearing Kefiyahs and chanting “From the River to the Sea” in a Harvard library during reading week? Piece of cake to cover. Lots of footage, lots of students happy to have their 15 minutes of fame as long as their faces are covered and their names aren’t revealed (can’t risk my job at Jane Street by going on CNN as a Hamas sympathizer, can I?) Gay then goes to DC and bungles. And now there’s an add-on story- did Harvard properly vet her?
My opinion. There are a lot of right wing conspiracies, but this ain’t one of them. Just a formerly respected institution which has been inept… the optics are terrible, and the story writes itself. Even if you are a left wing publication, this one has “legs”.
I stand corrected. Right wing conspiracy is too broad a term.
My comments only go to accusations of plagiarism, and demand for her to step down based on those particular accusations. The record is crystal clear on where those particular accusations came from, and the motive is easily discernible. The concern isn’t academic honesty and integrity, but a desire to get rid of Gay. The whole thing was orchestrated by culture war provocateurs who have devoted their careers to battling Critical Race Theory and other supposed progressive evils on college campuses and elsewhere. (And of course Fryer is a fellow at the same institution.)
That’s what it is about. It is a personal vendetta against a successful woman who represents values that many don’t believe in. That is why the culture war provocateurs are combing through papers she wrote 30 years ago as a first year graduate student. It doesn’t matter why her career is ruined, so long as it is ruined. Congratulations to all those who played along.
It surprises me that some people think of Claudine Gay as the “victim” here.
In fact, she revealed what she is. She is a bully. And she revealed that in her reaction to the NY Post’s revealing to Harvard that they had accusations of plagiarism and were awaiting their comment.
An innocent person would have laughed and said "bring it ". An ethical person would have let an investigation occur if necessary.
She instead sent a defamation lawyer after them immediately upon hearing of the accusations. Yes, her first instinct was to muzzle the press, hoping the problem would completely go away. It didn’t matter that what they were going to report was accurate.
That folks, is a bully.
I know you really believe that, but at least in my case that’s not it. I’ve met her, and she seemed perfectly pleasant. If you told me she supported Critical Race Theory, I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised or changed my impression of her at the time.
I just can’t tolerate cheating such as plagiarism. And I really dislike bullies.
I’m sorry but there have been posts that have everything to do with the lack of honesty and integrity in Gay’s published works, which you conveniently ignored. For instance, this post which partially stated that:
How do you explain this, @mtmind?
Sorry I don’t have any interest in discussing this with you given you outrageously accused me of dishonesty too.
The accusations are now being substantiated and then reported on by outlets such as the NY Times and Boston Globe. It seems you are suggesting she should get a pass based solely on who brought the plagiarism into the public eye.
The NY Times (from today) reports that Harvard students making the same “mistakes” would be severely punished…
“ Few of those who saw the accusations as potentially serious were willing to speak on the record. But some who said they were troubled also noted that students were often punished, sometimes harshly, for similar infractions.
“It’s troubling to see the standards we apply to undergrads seem to differ from the standards we apply to faculty,” Theda Skocpol, a professor of government, said”
I believe their journalism and think as the President of the school she should be held to the same if not higher standard regardless of who found it
Time to pause to allow reflection on the forum rules
This topic was automatically opened after 3 hours.
I may be in the minority here… but I think the plagiarism is “inside baseball” and is of interest to PhD’s, wannabee PhD’s, and lawyers who have active employment practices and a successful track record with large settlements for wrongful dismissal with a gag order included. The average “regular Joe or Jane” may have it out for Harvard (bunch of elitists who rejected my nephew who ended up a short order cook when his dream of studying Latin at Harvard was dashed) but I cannot imagine they know or care about the rules of citation, what is academic dishonesty (other than looking at someone else’s exam when the proctor looks away) or how research is attributed.
I don’t see it. But I am fascinated to hear others perspectives…
Strange then how some of her most vocal opponents are African-American, whether in the current brouhaha about plagiarism (not content with her WSJ op-ed, Carol Swaim is now doing media interviews) or in Gay’s previous run-ins with both Fryer and Ronald Sullivan:
“The actions were cowardly and craven and Dean Gay and Dean Khurana just consistently and repeatedly lied to the student body and they know better,” he said on Friday at an event held by the Harvard Undergraduate Constitutional Law Society.
Your assertion that any opposition to Dr Gay is only because of sour grapes from Harvard wannabes is untrue. Alums and parents of current students and grads are also disturbed by these allegations (not to mention her testimony).
Current students at Harvard have an intense, and vested interest in this issue.
The accusations have been repeated, but I’m not sure what you think has been substantiated? For example, you claim . . .
The “reporting” on this is nothing more than a nonspecific allusion to the opinions of people who refused to go on the record, and equally vague quote from a single professor. No investigation. No substantiation. No actual examples. No nothing. They don’t even explain what a single standard would mean in this context, since she is so differently situated than they are.
If students are actually are being thrown out of academia and their lives ruined (the desired outcome with regard to Dr. Gay) for the types of mistakes she made, that would be an unfair and unjustifiable tragedy and it should be addressed by changing that standard. But we cannot assume that this is what is happening to students based on the unsubstantiated conjecture in the article.
More than that, of course there is a double standard, and it is a good thing. Dr. Gay is differently situated than are current students, and current and past students should be praying they aren’t going to be treated the way people think Dr. Gay should be treated.
What if some overzealous haters with a personal grudge went back through every aspect of your life, including when you were in college. What if any mistake they find, whether it was intentional or not, meant you would would lose everything you have ever worked for? Would that be fair or reasonable?
More realistically (given the advancement in technology), would you be okay with someone scrutinizing and re-scrutinizing every decision/mistake your children and their children ever make, and if anyone ever finds something on them no matter how old, uses it to ruin their lives?
Fundamental fairness, peace of mind, finality, due process, preservation of evidence, and a host of other valid policy reasons cut against re-litigating every decision/mistake every person has ever made. That’s why we have a statute of limitations for all but capitol crimes. Because it is fundamentally unfair to ruin someone’s life for unchecked mistakes committed as long as three decades ago.
Yet that is standard that Gay is being held to, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
They do. But I wonder if they are considering that the same thing could happen to them and/or their classmates three decades down the road.
This is a complete reach. They aren’t investigating her tax returns from 2013, unpaid traffic tickets or using an expired coupon.
Any decision/mistake our kids ever made? Really?
They’re talking about her academic work at Harvard.