Struggling Harvard President Claudine Gay has denied accusations that she plagiarized large portions of her 1997 Ph.D. thesis in direct violation of Harvard’s academic integrity policy.
Documents obtained by reporters Christopher Rufo and Chris Brunet posted on X compare Gay’s political scientist paper with the earlier work of several academic authors and scholars, which in some passages is replicated almost word for word.
In one example, taken from page 12 of Gay’s dissertation, Rufo points to Harvard’s current president “lifting an entire paragraph” from a 1990 paper by Lawrence Bobo and Franklin Gilliam.
Appearing in Bobo and Gilliam’s original paper, published seven years before Gay wrote his thesis, was the phrase “blacks in high-black empowerment areas—as indicated by controls for the mayor’s office—are more active than any remaining blacks in low empowerment. area or their white peers of comparable socioeconomic status.”
Later in Gay’s paper he wrote “African-Americans in ‘high black empowerment’ areas—as indicated by controls for the mayor’s office—were more active than either African-Americans in low-empowerment areas or their white counterparts of high status comparable socioeconomics.”
Harvard President Claudine Gay has faced growing calls to resign following her testimony at a congressional hearing last week in which she failed to denounce calls for a “global intifada” on the Ivy League campus. Getty Images
In a statement to the Boston Globe Monday, Gay staunchly defended his academic rigor, saying “I stand by the integrity of my scholarship. Throughout my career, I have strived to ensure that my scholarship adheres to the highest academic standards.”
Although Gay cites Bobo and Gilliam by name in preface to his own very similar quote, Rufo’s near-verbatim replication of their words violates Harvard’s policy on paraphrasing.
“When you paraphrase, your job is to distill the source’s ideas into your own words. It is not enough to change a few words here and there and leave others; instead, you must fully restate the ideas in the passage in your own words,” the Harvard policy reads in part.
“If your own language is too close to the original, then you are plagiarizing, even if you provide a quote.”
Gay now faces accusations that he plagiarized part of a 1997 Ph.D. thesis, as posted side by side on X by Christopher Rufo and Chris Brunet allegedly illustrated. @realchrisrufo / X Rufo and Brunet claim Gay has excerpted and sometimes completed sentences from his dissertation. @realchrisrufo / X
Rufo provides several other examples where Gay’s words bear close resemblance to the works of scholars including Richard Shingles, Susan Howell, Deborah Fagan and Carol Swain.
In a quote from Richard Shingles’ 1981 paper, Rufo emphasizes that Gay reproduces the line “black consciousness contributes to political mistrust and a sense of internal policy efficacy that in turn encourages policy-related participation.”
Gay’s version of the line, which appears without quotation marks, reads: “Racial consciousness, Kayap (1981) has argued, contributes to political distrust and a sense of domestic policy efficacy which in turn encourages policy-related participation.”
Another side-by-side comparison shows Gay based Appendix B in his thesis almost entirely on Gary King’s book “A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem” without acknowledging the source material, despite the fact that King was Gay’s dissertation advisor, Rufo pointed out.
The bloggers also pointed to Harvard’s own policy on plagiarism, which they said Gay had severely violated by his failure to adequately elaborate and offer citations. @realchrisrufo / X
Rufo’s X thread too shared together by billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, which garnered more than 2.3 million views in less than 24 hours.
In his post, Ackman said he had asked “senior members” of the Harvard faculty to look into allegations of plagiarism against Gay. He claimed the school staff “found them trustworthy.”
Additionally, the Washington Free Beacon further claimed that four papers written by Gay and published between 1993 and 2017 lacked proper attribution.
The outlet said scholars it consulted agreed Gay had “violated core principles of academic integrity” and said they had found 10 instances where Gay had retracted a sentence or paragraph and changed only a word or two.
The sweeping accusations come amid growing calls for Gay’s resignation following a nasty congressional hearing last week in which he stopped short of denouncing Harvard students who called for a “global intifada” on the grounds of free speech.
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“We accept a commitment to freedom of expression – even unsavory, offensive views [and] hate,” he said. “When that speech conflicts with behavior that violates our policy against bullying and harassment. The speech did not pass that barrier.”
In the ensuing firestorm, billboard trucks calling for Gay’s removal surrounded the Ivy League school’s campus on Sunday emblazoned with the words “FIRE GAY” and displaying images of his appearance before Congress.
Harvard University’s campus has been the site of many alarming antisemitic demonstrations since Israel began its retaliation against Hamas for its October 7 terrorist attacks. Reuters
Another truck parked at the school’s main gate echoes Gay’s exchange with New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, where Harvard’s president said calls for genocide only qualify as harassment or bullying “depending on the context.”
The outpouring of criticism against Gay intensified following the resignation of fellow Ivy League university president Liz Magill of the University of Pennyslvania. He resigned on Dec. 9 following his appearance before Congress dissing Gay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Sally Kornbluth.
The campuses of many top American universities – including Harvard – have become hotbeds of antisemitic rhetoric in the wake of Israel’s war against Hamas, which began after October 7 when the terrorist group launched a surprise terror attack on the country, killing 1,200 civilians and kidnapping more than 240.
Requests for comment from Gay’s office were not immediately returned Monday.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
