Harvard’s Gay Accused Of 6 More Instances Of Plagiarism In New Complaint

The number of plagiarism accusations facing Harvard President Claudine Gay rose to nearly 50 on Monday after six more examples of alleged lifted and uncited content were brought to light.

In an amended complaint filed with the university, another of Gay’s past works, previously thought to be free of controversy, was allegedly found to include wording without attribution that appears in another source. The prior and new revelations on Gay’s scholarship call into question Harvard University’s independent review of her work, according to The Washington Free Beacon, which obtained a copy of the complaint.

“On December 19, I submitted a formal complaint with allegations of plagiarism by Claudine Gay,” the complaint says. “Now I am forced to submit an additional complaint with nearly 50 allegations, including over half a dozen examples never seen before. Some of them occur in a publication by Gay that was until now believed to be free from allegations of plagiarism. Others occur in the dissertation. Harvard’s ‘independent review’ missed them. For this reason and others, a new research misconduct inquiry must be opened.”

Of Gay’s 17 published works, eight of them are now reported to contain plagiarized material. The latest of her work to come into question is a 2001 article, “The Effect of Minority Districts and Minority Representation on Political Participation in California,” that contains “nearly half a page of material verbatim” lifted from a 1999 book by University of Wisconsin political science professor David Canon, according to the Free Beacon.

Two footnotes in Gay’s paper are direct copies of endnotes in Canon’s book, “Race, Redistricting, and Representation: The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts.”

When approached about the plagiarism accusations against Gay, Canon dismissed the portions that appeared as copies of his work.

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“I am not at all concerned about the passages,” Canon told the Free Beacon. “This isn’t even close to an example of academic plagiarism.”

Other scholars whose work was allegedly copied by Gay have not been as charitable. Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain, whose work appears without citation throughout Gay’s doctoral dissertation, said that Harvard is attempting to “redefine” plagiarism in order to protect Gay.

“I have a problem with the way Harvard has reacted to the entire situation, because it seems like — with the assistance of some of their professors and other elites — they’re trying to redefine what is plagiarism,” Swain said. “They’re making the argument that there are different levels and, by extension, that some of it is acceptable. That is a problem for higher education in America.”

The plagiarism scandal that has enveloped Gay and Harvard began after the university president appeared in front of Congress and testified that calls for genocide targeting Jews do not violate Harvard’s code of conduct. Gay said such calls depend on “context” whether or not they violate university policies.