Plagiarism at Harvard

[Langue_doc]

The latest on Claudine Gay--

Harvard Finds More Instances of 'Duplicative Language' in President's Work
Claudine Gay has faced growing criticism of not only her response to antisemitism on campus but also her scholarship.

Excerpts From Dr. Claudine Gay's Work
Here are five examples of work by President Claudine Gay of Harvard that have been spotlighted by critics who have accused her of plagiarism.

[Parasaurolophus]

I think the charges of so-called 'mosaic plagiarism' are overblown--that's just bad intuitions about where to place a footnote. And I certainly don't trust that the accusations are being made in good faith.

That said, the paragraph comparisons I saw definitely scream 'plagiarism' to me (and would do so even if cited, since they aren't quotes). It seems clearly unacceptable as far as I'm concerned.

But it's definitely not appropriate for Congress to be looking into it. What the fuck?

[Langue_doc]

I agree that the politicians should stay out of this. Gay does have a rather unimpressive list of publications; in addition, the instances of improper citations are exactly those that are covered in Freshman Comp classes, so there is absolutely no excuse for such errors in half or more than half of her very small list of publications.

Op-ed by John McWhorter on why she should resign:

Why Claudine Gay Should Go

[Ruralguy]

There's a process for examining these claims. So, let that happen, and if she should decide to resign or someone wants to ...ehem..."resign" her, at some point before that happens, which is likely, then so be it.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I agree that the politicians should stay out of this. Gay does have a rather unimpressive list of publications; in addition, the instances of improper citations are exactly those that are covered in Freshman Comp classes, so there is absolutely no excuse for such errors in half or more than half of her very small list of publications.

Op-ed by John McWhorter on why she should resign:

Why Claudine Gay Should Go

Her record is thin on if we're counting the number of articles, but three APSRs, an AJPS, and a JOP - all solo - is impressive in political science from a quality standpoint. 

It looks like she was sloppy more than anything - which does not excuse the plagiarism. If she had done something more serious, like faking results, then I'd be all for firing her, but imo this does not rise to the level of serious research misconduct. (But it does give cover for axing her.)

[kaysixteen]

McWhorter claims that Harvard's own posted plagiarism policies suggest that a freshman doing what she did could perhaps even be expelled.   Why should the university president survive such conduct, esp seeing as it appears to have been her repeated policy?

[Parasaurolophus]

Her record is thin on if we're counting the number of articles, but three APSRs, an AJPS, and a JOP - all solo - is impressive in political science from a quality standpoint. 

I wouldn't say 'only', since her PhD is from 1997. So yeah, top-tier solo pubs, but not many to show for an 18-year academic career at fancy institutions with plenty of resources and little teaching (before she became an administrator).

But she's from a different academic generation. The publication pressure on young academics twenty-six years ago just doesn't compare to the arms race today. This is true in my adjacent field, too; if I look at the CVs of people hired in my field at Stanford and the Ivies thirty years ago, I've already outstripped most of them despite having graduated only six years ago. Hell, I've outstripped most of the faculty at my PhD-granting institution! But they came up at a time when it was normal and expected for you to take your time publishing and focus on just a few high-quality pieces, and it was normal for you to slow down even more/stop after tenure. That's not how things are today, but it is how it was until maybe fifteen years ago. (Indeed, I know for a fact that Stanford still discourages its PhD students from publishing!) So, yeah, I wouldn't put too much stress on the number.


I do think that the 'sloppiness' should disqualify her from a leadership position such as President, Provost, or Dean, however. I'd hesitate to say it should lead to loss of a faculty position, but it seems incompatible with leading an institution whose members all know better and teach their students better. Like, it's a pretty important norm that she violated, over and over.

Having done some editing for some privileged people in political science, however, I have to say that I'm not at all surprised. This kind of sloppiness seems fairly common at a certain level. I remember one paper that came to me, as copy editor for an edited collection, chock full of quotes and allusions to the work of others, but without either a single reference or even a list of works cited. I sent it back to the editor despite the tight deadline, because it's sure as hell not my job to play research assistant to some asshole who can't be bothered. It was by a very well-known figure in the discipline, too. (Also, shame on the editors, who should not have passed it along.)

[Wahoo Redux]

But it's definitely not appropriate for Congress to be looking into it. What the fuck?

Conservatives have been losing the hearts and minds of the populace, their Trumpy figureheads are being savaged in the courts and the press, and the younger generation is considerably more liberal than they are.

They need something to get the useful idiots riled up.

So we have political theater.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Her record is thin on if we're counting the number of articles, but three APSRs, an AJPS, and a JOP - all solo - is impressive in political science from a quality standpoint. 

I wouldn't say 'only', since her PhD is from 1997. So yeah, top-tier solo pubs, but not many to show for an 18-year academic career at fancy institutions with plenty of resources and little teaching (before she became an administrator).

But she's from a different academic generation. The publication pressure on young academics twenty-six years ago just doesn't compare to the arms race today. This is true in my adjacent field, too; if I look at the CVs of people hired in my field at Stanford and the Ivies thirty years ago, I've already outstripped most of them despite having graduated only six years ago. Hell, I've outstripped most of the faculty at my PhD-granting institution! But they came up at a time when it was normal and expected for you to take your time publishing and focus on just a few high-quality pieces, and it was normal for you to slow down even more/stop after tenure. That's not how things are today, but it is how it was until maybe fifteen years ago. (Indeed, I know for a fact that Stanford still discourages its PhD students from publishing!) So, yeah, I wouldn't put too much stress on the number.


I do think that the 'sloppiness' should disqualify her from a leadership position such as President, Provost, or Dean, however. I'd hesitate to say it should lead to loss of a faculty position, but it seems incompatible with leading an institution whose members all know better and teach their students better. Like, it's a pretty important norm that she violated, over and over.

Having done some editing for some privileged people in political science, however, I have to say that I'm not at all surprised. This kind of sloppiness seems fairly common at a certain level. I remember one paper that came to me, as copy editor for an edited collection, chock full of quotes and allusions to the work of others, but without either a single reference or even a list of works cited. I sent it back to the editor despite the tight deadline, because it's sure as hell not my job to play research assistant to some asshole who can't be bothered. It was by a very well-known figure in the discipline, too. (Also, shame on the editors, who should not have passed it along.)

I agree that her record is light on quantity and perhaps would not be sufficient for her level of success in today's marketplace. But her number of publications should not really matter at this point, except perhaps as a denominator to assess how frequently she engaged in plagiarism.

As to whether she should be fired from her current post, I would draw the line at serious research misconduct and imo her crimes do not rise to that level. But, you make a good point that she violated an important norm too often. In any case, given the surrounding circumstances I think her days are likely numbered. 

With regards to sloppiness by top scholars, I've seen my share as well. But even as a middling-scholar I would be nervous if people scrutinized every word I've ever written.

[dismalist]

My opinion is that Harvard can do whatever the hell it pleases. Here, too I am pro-choice.

Part of the scrutiny will be from politicians one might not like. But each chamber of Congress can investigate whatever the hell it pleases [though I believe each committee's subpoena powers are restricted by the corresponding chamber as a whole].

Every institution makes its own success criteria and their publics will decide whether the institutions are right or wrong in the light of any information that becomes available.

[spork]

If what is reported here is accurate, Gay's plagiarism isn't just a case of "sloppiness"; she has a long history of copying and pasting entire paragraphs, with only minor word changes, without attribution:

https://freebeacon.com/campus/this-is-definitely-plagiarism-harvard-university-president-claudine-gay-copied-entire-paragraphs-from-others-academic-work-and-claimed-them-as-her-own/.

Also the Harvard Corporation did not follow the university's established policy and channels for investigating academic misconduct:

https://freebeacon.com/columns/the-harvard-scandal-is-bigger-than-claudine-gay/.

To me this looks like sloppiness and laziness on the part of dissertation committee members, journal reviewers & editors, and hiring committees because of Gay's imprimatur as a member of academia's uber-elite (Philips Exeter Academy, enrollment at Princeton, completion of bachelor's at Stanford, PhD at Harvard, back to Stanford  as professor, tenured there, then back to Harvard as dean).

 

[kaysixteen]

If you had submitted a plagiarised diss to your committee (assuming said committee was not negligent in vetting it and thereby missing said plagiarism), would it have:
     
       a) done nothing
       b) told you to get rid of the plagiarism and come back, say in 6 months
    or c) defenestrated you from the PhD program?

It would of course perhaps be one thing if Gay had only plagiarised her diss back in the day, but she has however demonstrated that she is a serial plagiarist.   Let's dispense with the nonsense regarding 'types of plagiarism'-- what she has done, repeatedly, is steal the work of other scholars.   Really, that is what she did.  I taught 7th graders in bibliographic instruction, let alone older k12 students and undergrads in a 'Reading for College' class, and when I do this, I am always at great pains to demonstrate that plagiarism is the 'academic death penalty', which it appears to be for lowly 18yo first-semester froshburgers at Hahvahd, according to Camp Veritas' own published plagiarism rules, free for anyone to see online.  Why is this a hard case?

Further, with additional regard to McWhorter (who is a self-promoter and a studied, deliberate provocateur, of course) he seems to feel the facts clearly suggest that the reason the Harvard trustees have not yet defenestrated Gay, but rather have held firm in her corner, is that they are afraid that showing her the door would open them up to charges of racism.   One does not need, ahem, a Harvard PhD to understand why McWhorter, a black scholar, feels this unacceptable, and feels that it continues to exacerbate or otherwise cheapen the 's/he's an affirmative action hire who cannot be held to the same standards of white dudes' vibe any tolerance for egregious academic misconduct such as Gay's would indicate.   Indeed, Harvard is perhaps especially guilty of double-standardsism here, seeing that less than 20 years ago it did infact cashier a very white, very establishment president, Summers, for merely making some intemperate remarks.

[Hegemony]

If I had submitted a dissertation containing plagiarism, they would have failed my PhD and thrown me out of the program. And justifiably so.

[RatGuy]

My PhD program started using Turnitin during the time I was dissertating. To see what the software could do, the provost ran some plagiarism reports. I don't know if there were suspicions of plagiarism beforehand, but the reports showed that a recent PhD graduate from our place had plagiarized portions of his dissertation. The student had already graduated and the provost fumed that he didn't know what the best course was. He wanted to mandate that theses were to be checked for plagiarism going forward, but the grad school pushed back on it. I don't know if it's required now, but it wasn't when I graduated.

[lightning]

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/01/02/us/claudine-gay-harvard#harvard-claudine-gay-resigns