A member of Harvard’s student Honor Council is calling for the resignation of university president Claudine Gay over an ongoing plagiarism scandal — accusing the school’s governing body of having one standard for embattled administrators and another for the student body.
“Gays get away easily,” the student, who sat on a council tasked with deciding sanctions for classmates caught plagiarizing, wrote in a letter published anonymously in the Harvard Crimson Sunday.
“Let’s compare the treatment of Harvard students suspected of plagiarism with their president,” they wrote.
“When the students — my classmates, peers and friends — appear before the council, they feel disappointed. For many, it was the worst day of their college career. For some, it was the worst day of their lives. They often cry.”
First-time plagiarism violations — which can result from omitted quotation marks, and incomplete or missing citations — typically result in one term of probation and the stripping of a student’s “good standing” status, preventing them from studying abroad or even graduating, the authors write
Claudine Gay was allowed to correct her plagiarism, while a student could be suspended for a year for the same violation REUTERS
Repeated offenses could result in the student withdrawing from the university for two semesters, according to the letter, which was published in Harvard’s student newspaper.
Gay was accused of plagiarism after critics identified dozens of instances from several of his journal articles and PhD dissertations that included missing quotation marks, incomplete quotations and sentences copied almost word for word.
“What is interesting about the alleged plagiarism against President Gay is that the impropriety is routine and widespread,” the letter said.
Gay was found to have used “duplicate language without proper attribution” in some of his academic work, the school’s governing body, the Harvard Corporation, said after an investigation.
Instead of Gay having to withdraw from the university because a student made the same mistake, Harvard stood behind its president and allowed him to correct the mistake, the student’s letter said.
“That the Corporation considers his correction to be an adequate response is unfair to students, who cannot simply submit corrections to avoid penalties,” the student wrote.
Trucks surrounding Harvard University have been circling the school demanding Gay’s resignation or removal as president. David McGlynn
“When my peers were found responsible for several instances of inadequate citations, they were often suspended for one academic year. When their university president was found responsible for the same type of violation, the Corporation fellows ‘unanimously supported’ him,” the letter said, citing the Corporation’s statement on the scandal.
The scandal has led many to call for Gay’s resignation and others to dismiss the error as accidental.
“A thoughtful assessment of the plagiarism allegations suggests that Gay’s behavior constituted plagiarism, but because the errors did not appear to be intentional, they do not warrant his resignation,” the Harvard Crimson’s editorial board wrote in an op-ed published Saturday.
The student’s Honor Council member dismissed the argument that the plagiarism was unintentional as absurd.
Many called for Gay to resign. scale
“While one retracted paragraph can be blamed on an error in judgment, a pattern is more troubling,” the student wrote.
“There is one standard for me and my peers and another, much lower standard for our University president. The corporation should resolve the double standard by demanding his resignation.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
