Claudine Gay, quondam President of Harvard, has done the only decent thing, and resigned. This is a victory for truth and justice. It should put a smile on your face, a bounce in your step. She tried to brazen it out, the scandal of her extensive plagiarism, just as she had survived the first wave of saeva indignatio for her “it depends on the context” answer to a Congresswoman’s question if she thought calls for genocide against Jews could be considered as violating Harvard’s code of conduct. But then another, much more damning scandal, arose, when a whistleblower in December presented the Harvard Corporation with irrefutable evidence that Claudine Gay, throughout her career, has been a serial plagiarist, beginning with her dissertation. She has been found to have plagiarized both in her doctoral dissertation, and in at least eight — the investigation is ongoing — of the 11 papers she has published in the last 26 years. So far, more than fifty instances of her plagiarizing have been identified. When the investigation is over, there will undoubtedly be more examples. Gay didn’t just copy phrases, or single sentences, but entire paragraphs, and sometimes several paragraphs in a row. if a Harvard student had copied from others without attribution as Claudine Gay has done over her career, he would have been immediately expelled without hope of reinstatement.
In one example, in “The Effect of Minority Districts and Minority Representation on Political Participation in California. Public Policy Institute of California,” in 2001, Gay wrote: “The central parts of the measure are Section 2 and Section 5. Section 2 reiterates the guarantees of the 15th amendment, prohibiting any state or political subdivision from adopting voting practices that ‘deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.’ Section 5, imposed only on ‘covered’ jurisdictions with a history of past discrimination, requires Justice Department preclearance of changes in any electoral process or mechanism.”
Professor Robert Canon, of the University of Wisconsin, had written in his work, “Race, Redistricting, and Representation: The Unintended Consequence”: “The central parts of the VRA are Section 2 and Section 5. The former prohibits any state or political subdivision from imposing a voting practice that will ‘deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.’ The latter was imposed only on ‘covered’ jurisdictions with a history of past discrimination, which must submit changes in any electoral process or mechanism to the federal government for approval.”
Gay is also accused of lifting text from another academic, Gary King, who had been her dissertation advisor. Now that’s what I’d call chutzpah.
King wrote: “The posterior distribution of each of the precinct parameters within the bounds indicated by its tomography line is derived by the slice it cuts out of the bivariate distribution of all lines.”
Gay, in 2001, wrote: “The posterior distribution of each of the precinct parameters for precinct is derived by the slice it’s [sic] tomography line cuts out of this bivariate distribution.”
You can find many more examples of her lifting of passages from a half-dozen academics, including the aforementioned Professors Gary King and Robert Canon. Professor Franklin Gilliam was another source for many of her unattributed “borrowings.” It is particularly piquant that Professor Emerita Carol M.Swain. herself Afro-American, was particularly scathing about Gay’s wholesale appropriation of her work without attribution. More examples of Gay’s plagiarism can be found here and here.
By January 2, nearly fifty separate examples of plagiarism had been identified in her work. The pressure on her to resign was simply too great. Besides, she must have worried that if she did not do so, still more examples of plagiarism would be unearthed, and she might even face the loss not just of the presidency, but of her tenured professorship. Better to resign, supposedly in dignified fashion, without of course admitting the justice of the charges made against her. Her resignation letter failed to mention either her studied remark before Congress about how “context” would determine whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s code of conduct, or the mounting evidence of extensive plagiarism throughout her career. She might, for example, have tried to explain away that plagiarism, as others charged with similar offense, have tried, with the excuse that “while doing my research, I would often take notes on my reading, not always remembering to provide the proper attribution, and later, convinced that the words I had taken from other sources were mine, I included them in my text, unattributed to their source, and for this I am truly sorry.” But she didn’t do that. She simply didn’t mention the subject on everyone’s mind in Harvard Yard, and the real reason for her resignation. Now she’s out.
And don’t worry, a complete compendium of all of her 50-odd acts of plagiarism will, I have no doubt, be posted on the Internet, so that her embarrassment and chagrin at being caught — not shame, for she is shameless — will be with us, and her, forever.
W D Pappas says
And of course she claimed it was because of racism.. but, as Greg Gutfeld noted she did not resign because of racism, she was hired because of racism…
PRCS says
I saw him say that, and many others rightly feel the same way.
Bexarkat says
I am sure Dr Mark Lamont Hill, et al, will blame the Jews for this.
PRCS says
+1
Likely not just him.
SteveC says
Life is an absolute bitch when people plagiarize your documents then hook up with ‘The Doctor’ to travel back in time and make it look like you stole their work.
This time travelling has to stop it’s so unfair.
Mike says
to go thru life riding the backs of others
then to get a 3 letter addon you your name
this is just criminal
who will notice not black people
white people dare say anything because that’s raciest
ed says
She should have never been president in the first place (sound familiar?)
She only got the job through racism
Jack Reynolds says
Claudine Gay is not guilty of plagiarism.
.
Someone used their White Privilege to say something that she would have been the first to say.
.
Phil Copson says
“This could be the end of a beautiful fellowship” (Gazablanca)
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Means nothing, as long as the Ivy League remains married to DEI and that entire ideology
James Lincoln says
The rot at Harvard, tragically, goes much deeper than just Claudine Gay.
Parents should NOT send their children there – even if they get a free ride.
WPM says
The best part is even though she is not longer “President” she is still “teaching” in Harvard and getting paid 900K a year to pedal her B.S.
Statler says
I also read that she will stay on, but if she is guilty of plagiary that would be inconceivable. I guess the jury must still be out on this.
WPM says
The jury will stay out , Harvard is too cowardly to fire her. If a student did what she did that student would be kick off campus forthwith .The only way she would fired and lose here job and salary is if enough big donators threat to stop giving Harvard money. .She has three way protected class status ,she is a woman ,she is a woman of color ,she is a gay woman .She even plagiarist work from another Black woman who was a professor at another college I believe her name is Carol Swan who is speaking out about her work being stolen.
Transmaster says
It is to bad that Universities were not operated like they were in Great Britain in the 14th century. Universities like Cambridge only supplied classrooms and living quarters for Professors which they had to rent. These professors had to personally attract paying students to their classes. It was students who directly paid these professors to sit their classes. If a professor could not attract enough people to pay the bills and put food on the table they had to move on and try to make money elsewhere. To get a degree a student had to be educated in a certain way, but it was entirely up to the student who was teaching them.
WPM says
If only American Universities brought back standards they had in 1980 where professors where expected to submit their own work .When professors at campuses would not condone , or excuse or promote terrorist threats against students because of their religious or political affiliation . Being a serial plagiarist ,and condoning one group of students threating to kill another group of students because they are Jewish is not the model behavior or accepted behavior of a tenue Professor .Being payed 900k a year even though you lied your way into a job you obviously are not qualify for ,and your moral character that you cannot condemn mass genocide ,you are entrusted to teach students at a university level shows how there is no screening process in hiring professors beyond checking the right skin color and sexual orientation boxes. .
OLD GUY says
She got a position she probably didn’t deserve over other candidates, and then when she fails it’s not her fault, it’s racism. But of Course. That’s how she got the JOB.
When you lower your standards in hiring and admissions you get lower results.
James Lincoln says
Spot on comment, OLD GUY.
James Lincoln says
So, do Harvard students who have plagiarized now get a “get out of jail free” card?
Troybeam says
C. Gay rewarded for cheating gets to keep her teaching job at $900K, that people is the democrat way of saying FU world.
Scotsman48 says
Once upon a time a University like Harvard had a great reputation around the World, today not so much.
This woman complains that she is being treated badly and yet this my dear black Gay woman is what equality looks like.
She got the gig because she covered all the PC boxes and now she complains that it is indeed those boxes that got her busted.
Harvard is done and dusted.