Embattled Harvard president Claudine Gay has been hit with fresh allegations of plagiarism, with claims that she lifted ‘entire paragraphs’ in her academic writing – but the Ivy League says it’s still backing her.
The new allegations were first published in a shocking report from the Washington Free Beacon and span seven publications authored by Gay over 30 years, ranging from missing quotation marks around a few phrases or sentences to entire paragraphs lifted verbatim. Gay is now accused of plagiarizing about half of the 11 journal articles on her resume.
The academic initially submitted two corrections to papers from 2001 and 2017 after she was accused of plagiarism, adding ‘quotation marks and citations,’ a Harvard spokesman said. However, after additional claims of plagiarism, the Ivy League then said on Wednesday that Gay would also update three spots in her Ph.D. dissertation to add attributions.
It comes as the House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced that it’s widening the scope of it’ probe into Gay’s work, and demanded the school hand over all documentation related to the plagiarism allegations. The committee had already opened a probe into antisemitism at the Harvard campus following Gay’s testimony that was heavily criticized.
‘Our concern is that standards are not being applied consistently, resulting in different rules for different members of the academic community,’ said Republican rep. Virginia Foxx, the committee’s chair.
Harvard President Claudine Gay is still in power despite backlash about her testimony last week and new allegations of plagiarism
Gay was accused of copying two paragraphs from work by then-Harvard scholars D. Stephen Voss and Bradley Palmquist. One paragraph is nearly identical except for a few words
However, Gay did not use any quotation marks or in-text citations – Voss and Palmquist are not cited anywhere in her dissertation
On Wednesday night Harvard told the Boston Globe they found ‘examples of duplicative language without appropriate attribution’ in Gay’s 1997 PhD dissertation, titled ‘Taking Charge: Black Electoral Success and the Redefinition of American Politics.’
The initial corrections were made to a 2017 article titled ‘A Room for One’s Own? The Partisan Allocation of Affordable Housing,’ in the Urban Affairs Review. A 2001 article titled ‘The Effect of Black Congressional Representation on Political Participation’ in the American Political Science Review was also amended.
Gay was first publicly accused of plagiarism by right-wing media, particularly blogger Christopher Rufo, who earlier this month outlined issues in her dissertation and a series of articles.
Just hours after the allegation were published, the university said it was standing by Gay after having quietly investigated the claims back in October and finding her conduct fell short of academic misconduct.
While the Harvard board said they found no violation of the school’s policies in Gay’s work, The Harvard Crimson, which reviewed the examples of alleged plagiarism, landed at a different conclusion.
The school’s paper wrote that some of Gay’s writings ‘appear to violate Harvard’s current policies around plagiarism and academic integrity.’
Gay defended her work telling 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.’
While the bloggers focused their claims on Gay’s dissertation, The Free Beacon also looked at three other works by the scholar: a 1993 essay in the publication Origins and two papers from 2012 and 2017, when Gay was already a Harvard professor.
While some of the claims by the Free Beacon include minor citation issues, the Crimson said others are ‘are more substantial, including some paragraphs and sentences nearly identical to other work and lacking citations.’
The student publication notes Harvard’s rule on what constitutes plagiarism says when copying language ‘word for word,’ scholars ‘must give credit to the author of the source material, either by placing the source material in quotation marks and providing a clear citation, or by paraphrasing the source material and providing a clear citation.’
Gay was accused of copying two paragraphs from work by then-Harvard scholars D. Stephen Voss and Bradley Palmquist. One paragraph is nearly identical except for a few words.
However, Gay did not use any quotation marks or in-text citations – Voss and Palmquist are not cited anywhere in her dissertation.
It’s unclear whether the same rules applied when Gay turned in her dissertation in 1997.
But Voss, who now teaches at the University of Kentucky, told The Crimson that while Gay ‘technically plagiarized,’ it is ‘minor-to-inconsequential.’
He said: ‘This doesn’t at all look sneaky… It looks like maybe she just didn’t have a sense of what we normally tell students they’re supposed to do and not do.’
Harvard professor Lawrence Lobo, one of those allegedly plagiarized by Gay, similarly told the Boston Globe: ‘I find myself unconcerned about these claims as our work was explicitly acknowledged.’
Harvard President Claudine Gay now faces a Congressional investigation into dozens of allegations of plagiarism that have surfaced since her derided testimony at the Capitol on campus anti-Semitism