The plot thickens. The firestorm surrounding Harvard and its President Claudine Gay continues to rage on. Gay has been embattled amid congressional hearings pursuant to hate speech and aggressive behavior towards certain students, and plagiarism claims dating back decades. The congressional hearing led to the sacking of the University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill. Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth remain. The plagiarism claims against Gay were made publicly over the past few days. However, the New York Post revealed it reached out to Harvard about such plagiarism claims in late-October. Harvard attempted to silence The Post via a letter from a defamation lawyer:
The Post contacted the university on October 24, asking for comment on more than two dozen instances in which Gay’s words appeared to closely parallel words, phrases or sentences in published works by other academics.
The 27 instances were in two academic papers published in two peer-reviewed journals between 2011 and 2017, and an article in an academic magazine in 1993.
The Post was sent the material anonymously and had conducted our own analysis before asking Harvard to comment on whether Gay had plagiarized or failed to properly cite other academics’ work. We have continued to investigate since.
When The Post brought the allegations to Harvard, Jonathan Swain, its senior executive director of media relations and communications, asked for more time to review Gay’s work.
A day later Swain, who was part of the Biden-Harris transition team and a one-time Hillary Clinton aide, said he would “get back in touch over the next couple of days.”
But he did not. And two days later, on Oct. 27, The Post was sent a 15-page letter by Thomas Clare, a high-powered Virginia-based attorney with the firm Clare-Locke who identified himself as defamation counsel for Harvard University and Gay.
The letter contained comments from academics whose work Gay was alleged to have improperly cited — even though the political scientists’ review could only just have begun.
Harvard has still not said what works Gay is seeking to have corrected, and whether her dissertation will be corrected. it did not respond to a further set of questions from The Post Tuesday.
Harvard claims Ms. Gay’s academic writings did not breach the institution’s academic standards. For now, the public must simply take Harvard’s word for it, despite the fact that over two dozen instances of perceived examples where Ms. Gay’s words/works resembled the words/works other academics.
Harvard’s alleged cover-up of the probe is also alarming. Instead of having a transparent review process, it appeared to have battened down the hatches to protect Ms. Gay and/or the institution. The Shock Exchange has an eerie feeling that this saga could continue for quite some time.
