Harvard defends its research for plagiarism by its former president

Harvard defends its research for plagiarism by its former president

In a report to a congressional committee released Friday, Harvard gave its most detailed account yet of its handling of plagiarism allegations against Claudine Gay, who resigned this month as the university’s president.

The outlines of the saga were known, but Harvard had not revealed many details, raising questions about the impartiality and rigor of its investigation.

In its report, Harvard defended the thoroughness of its plagiarism review. It said an outside panel had found Dr. Gay’s articles to be “sophisticated and original,” with “virtually no evidence of intentional assertion of findings” that were not her own, even as it found a pattern of duplicate language in three articles. .

But his account also shows that the university’s board of trustees was slow to make a full accounting of his work. Instead, for several weeks, Harvard scrambled to investigate a steady trickle of plagiarism accusations, unable to provide an immediate, authoritative response to questions about Dr. Gay’s scholarship.

The report is part of a larger filing by Harvard, made in response to a letter of December 20 of the House Education and Workforce Committee, which is investigating allegations of plagiarism and anti-Semitism against universities. That committee held the now-famous hearing on university anti-Semitism in which Dr. Gay and two other university presidents were criticized for their legalistic responses to questions about anti-Semitism.

The committee said it was currently reviewing Harvard’s submission. So far, only the plagiarism report has been made public.

Harvard’s story begins on October 24, when it says that a New York Post journalist approached the university about accusations of plagiarism.

The Post submitted to Harvard a list of 25 excerpts that Dr. Gay, a political scientist, was accused of plagiarizing, from three articles she had written. One article was dated 1993, when she was a graduate student, and the others were dated 2012 and 2017, when she was in college, the report says.

Harvard, according to the report, contacted several of the authors it was accused of plagiarizing: “none of whom objected to then-President Gay’s language.”

The university formed a subcommittee to lead the review, with the help of attorneys. Subcommittee members were Biddy Martin, former president of Amherst College; Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, former justice of the California Supreme Court; Shirley Tilghman, former president of Princeton University; and Theodore V. Wells Jr., partner at the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison.

The subcommittee then appointed a three-member external panel. The summary describes the panel members as tenured professors at prominent research institutions and two of them are former presidents of the American Political Science Association.

They have asked that their identities be kept confidential, Harvard said. But the House committee, which has the power to subpoena witnesses, could still demand their names.

The independent panel did not do a full review of Dr. Gay’s work. It considered only the allegations shared by The Post and compared Dr. Gay’s three articles with 11 articles by other academics, the report says.

The panel concluded that “there was virtually no evidence of intentional assertion of findings other than those of President Gay,” the report said.

But he expressed concern about a pattern of repeated language. And Dr. Gay, who defended her scholarship, had to submit some corrections between quotes.

The review appeared, briefly, to have eliminated the allegations, and the university’s governing board, the Harvard Corporation, endorsed his continued presidency.

But by then, new accusations had emerged on social media, this time about Dr. Gay’s dissertation. The Harvard report says the subcommittee “rapidly” reviewed his dissertation and that Dr. Gay also had to submit some corrections.

On December 19, an additional complaint was filed with Harvard’s research integrity office, but no additional corrections were necessary, the account says.

Two weeks later, she was out.

Harvard’s account acknowledges that the university did not handle the review perfectly, suggesting that the university was in crisis as it faced an uproar over its handling of anti-Semitism on campus.

“These allegations emerged at a time of unprecedented events and tensions on campus and globally,” the report said. “We understand and recognize that many felt our efforts were not transparent enough, raising questions about our review process and standard.”

On Friday, Harvard also announced new rules to curb student protests.

In a message just before the start of university classes on Monday, Harvard said demonstrations would not be allowed in classrooms, libraries, dormitories or dining halls without permission. Instead, protests are limited to “yards, quadrangles and other similar spaces” and cannot prevent students from walking to class.

The clarification did not directly address the question raised at the congressional hearing that contributed to Dr. Gay’s resignation: whether protesters chanting slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which many Israel supporters interpret as a called to eliminate Israel) would go against Harvard’s code of conduct.

Annie Karni contributed with reports.