Harvard President Claudine Gay has been embattled over the past few weeks pursuant to a congressional testimony related to keeping students safe on campus, and plagiarism claims. Harvard’s school newspaper, The Crimson, announced she recently resigned:
Harvard President Claudine Gay will resign Tuesday afternoon, bringing an end to the shortest presidency in the University’s history, according to a person with knowledge of the decision.
It is not clear who will be appointed to serve as interim president.
University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to comment on Gay’s decision to step down.
Gay’s resignation — just six months and two days into the presidency — comes amid growing allegations of plagiarism and lasting doubts over her ability to respond to antisemitism on campus after her disastrous congressional testimony Dec. 5.
Gay weathered scandal after scandal over her brief tenure, facing national backlash for her administration’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and allegations of plagiarism in her scholarly work.
The Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — is expected to announce the resignation to Harvard affiliates in an email later today. Gay is also expected to make a statement about the decision.
The plagiarism claims were numerous and substantial. They ranged from copying content from other researchers verbatim, to not putting quotation marks around content she did not write to not properly citing other authors and researchers. Apparently, in the world of academia, citations are important for credibility, grants, tenure, promotions, etc. Not citing other authors takes citations away from them, and is a form of stealing. Having people cite you instead, is a way of stealing another author’s identity and creating an ecosystem from someone else’s work. It also calls into question whether Gay ever did any of the work she received an PHD for or whether she was capable of doing it.
According to the New York Post, Gay and Harvard tried to conceal plagiarism claims against her, and threatened the Post with legal action. Up until the end of 2023 there were about 44 reported instances of plagiarism. Gay was hit with six more claims this morning.
That may have been “the lick that killed poor dick.”
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