House panel widens Harvard probe to incorporate President Claudine Gay plagiarism expenses

House Republicans expanded their investigation into Harvard University to incorporate the rising checklist of plagiarism expenses towards President Claudine Gay, elevating issues that the faculty is holding its college students to the next commonplace than its management.

House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx requested the Harvard Corporation for paperwork and communications associated to its unbiased evaluation of plagiarism expenses broached in October in addition to these unearthed in the previous few weeks.

They embody a 37-page report despatched Tuesday to Harvard by a professor from one other college detailing 40 plagiarism allegations, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

“If a university is willing to look the other way and not hold faculty accountable for engaging in academically dishonest behavior, it cheapens its mission and the value of its education. Students must be evaluated fairly, under known standards — and have a right to see that faculty are, too,” mentioned Ms. Foxx, North Carolina Republican, within the Wednesday letter to Harvard Corporation senior fellow Penny Pritzker.

The committee launched an investigation into antisemitism at Harvard after a Dec. 5 listening to that includes Ms. Gay in addition to then-University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth.

All three mentioned that it could rely on the context when requested if calling for “genocide of Jews” violated their conduct codes.

Ms. Magill resigned beneath strain from alumni and donors just a few days later.

Harvard stood behind Ms. Gay, the college’s first Black and second feminine president, in a Dec. 12 assertion addressing each the antisemitism and plagiarism points.

The Harvard Corporation mentioned its unbiased evaluation into three articles written by Ms. Gay confirmed “a few instances of inadequate citation,” however that the evaluation “found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct.”

Ms. Gay voluntarily issued corrections to 2 of the articles.

As it turned out, nonetheless, these articles have been solely the tip of the iceberg. The final two weeks have seen a drumbeat of examples from her writings of near-verbatim paraphrasing or insufficient quotation from sources.

Plagiarism expenses have been detailed in separate stories from Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo, the New York Post, and the Free Beacon.

Left-tilting media shops have begun to take discover. In a Sunday editorial, the Boston Globe requested, “Did Claudine Gay plagiarize or not? Harvard should be clear.”

“Harvard president’s corrections do not address her clearest instances of plagiarism, including as a student in the 1990s,” mentioned CNN in a Wednesday headline.

Mr. Rufo posted Tuesday the acknowledgement on her 1997 Ph.D. thesis alongside the acknowledgement of a 1996 paper by one other scholar.

“This is incredible: In her dissertation, Claudine Gay plagiarized the language of her acknowledgment from the acknowledgment of another scholar, without citing the source,” mentioned Mr. Rufo on X. “She couldn’t even say ‘thank you’ without plagiarizing the language.”

Some have excused Claudine Gay‘s plagiarism as happening long ago, but here is an example from 2017, in the last paper she wrote before becoming a full-time administrator.

There are 40 allegations across three decades. It’s serial plagiarism. She did it till the tip. pic.twitter.com/a5DgetaTC8

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 20, 2023

In her letter, Ms. Foxx identified that Harvard’s federal funding is contingent upon its accreditation.

Harvard is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education, which states {that a} prerequisite for accreditation is that the college “works to prevent cheating and plagiarism as well as to deal forthrightly with any instances in which they occur.”

She additionally famous that Harvard holds its college students to “high academic and ethical standards.” In the 2020-21 tutorial yr, she mentioned, the Harvard honor council investigated 100 instances, 46 of which resulted in tutorial probation or obligatory withdrawal.

“Again, does Harvard hold its faculty — and its own president — to the same standards?” requested Ms. Foxx, a North Carolina Republican.

Harvard has not responded publicly to the letter from the congresswoman.