Harvard President Claudine Gay is now facing a plagiarism accusation.
The accusation comes from reporter Christopher Rufo.
On Sunday night, Rufo posted the following message to his X account:
EXCLUSIVE: @RealChrisBrunet and I have obtained documentation demonstrating that Harvard President Claudine Gay plagiarized multiple sections of her Ph.D. thesis, violating Harvard's policies on academic integrity.
This is a bombshell. 🧵
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 10, 2023
In a substack article, Rufo presents the evidence that he believes supports his plagiarism claim.
First, Gay lifts an entire paragraph nearly verbatim from a paper by Lawrence Bobo and Franklin Gilliam’s, while passing it off as her own paraphrase and language.
This is a direct violation of Harvard's policy: "When you paraphrase, your task is to distill the source’s ideas… pic.twitter.com/t6enHp3dN9
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 10, 2023
Rufo goes on to show how Gay repeated "this violation of Harvard's policy throughout the document." Then, Rufo shows how Gay allegedly plagiarized the work of other authors. For example:
Second, Gay appears to lift material from scholar Carol Swain. In one passage, summarizing the distinction between "descriptive representation" and "substantive representation," she copies the phrasing and language nearly verbatim from Swain’s book 'Black Faces, Black Interests,'… pic.twitter.com/68bJy1F9jo
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 10, 2023
Later, Rufo writes, "I earned a master's degree from Harvard's night school—not nearly as prestigious as the graduate school—but, if I had committed these kinds of violations, I would have been expelled. As an alumnus, I am calling on Claudine Gay to immediately resign from her position."
Gay is one of three university presidents who have landed themselves at the center of a serious controversy. The others include the president of MIT and the former president of the University of Pennsylvania.
The controversy stems from their recent congressional testimony. During that testimony, all three individuals refused to explicitly condemn on-campus calls for the genocide of the Jewish people.
Gay and the others have, thus, found themselves facing a significant backlash, with many calling for their removal from their positions.
Thus far, only University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill has resigned from her position. Gay and the president of MIT both have managed to hold on to their presidencies, and it is looking as though it might stay this way.
On Monday, Fox News reported:
More than 500 Harvard faculty members supported University President Claudine Gay in a letter to the school's board Sunday . . .
