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Harvard's President Might Be Involved in a Plagiarism Scandal

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  December 11, 2023 9:00 AM

University of Pennsylvania’s board of trustees booted Liz Magill after her disastrous answer on antisemitism before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce sparked intense backlash. To recap, Ms. Magill couldn’t say or condemn whether chants for Jewish genocide constituted bullying or harassment. Yes, and Jewish students are just voluntarily hiding in their dorms, hiding their identities, and holing up in libraries for fun, right? 

It’s become a jihadist circus on college campuses. Activism has replaced the tenets of learning and study. It was still a liberal cesspool, but differing views were tolerated. Many progressives may not have liked right-leaning views, but there was never an active effort to silence speech. The past decade has seen an acceleration in this authoritarian ethos, which is necessary if the Left wants to accomplish its goals in academia: turning it into factories for left-wing warriors, where a prerequisite is to hate Israel and Jewish people. 

Harvard President Claudine Gay was also at this hearing, sitting next to Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth. All three women gave similar answers, saying that context is needed when someone declares their hatred of Jewish people and calls for mass murder. It’s an unholy combination of stupidity, fear, and support for terrorism. These college heads fear their students if they voice a modicum of common sense on this issue; that’s not an excuse. Magill tendered her resignation over the weekend after the backlash proved too great. She also lost a $100 million donation, which could get anyone fired. Will Gay be next? The faculty is behind her, but what about a plagiarism allegation in her Ph.D. thesis? Christopher Rufo and Christopher Brunet have found that the cornerstone of Gay’s academic career might have run afoul of this infraction: 

Academic fraud is cause for dismissal. It’s entirely unrelated to her antisemitism trip-up before Congress. Still, whatever legitimate cause can be made to remove Gay is for the best if the institution wants to rehabilitate its image as a place of learning, not a hub of enabling pro-Hamas propaganda. Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne, a neuroscientist, was president of Stanford before he resigned last summer after an independent review found flaws in some of the research papers in which he was involved. He was cleared of falsifying research, but Mr. Tessier-Lavigne admitted he could have been more "diligent" in correcting other works that needed revisions at the time. He stepped down last August (via NY Post):

The president of Stanford University said Wednesday he would resign, citing an independent review that cleared him of research misconduct but found flaws in other papers authored by his lab. 

Marc Tessier-Lavigne said in a statement to students and staff that he would step down August 31.

The resignation comes after the board of trustees launched a review in December following allegations he engaged in fraud and other unethical conduct related to his research and papers. 

He says he “never submitted a scientific paper without firmly believing that the data were correct and accurately presented.” 

But he says he should have been more diligent in seeking corrections regarding his work.

[...]

He said he was aware of issues with four of the five papers but acknowledged taking “insufficient” steps to deal with the issues.

He said he’ll retract three of the papers and correct two.

[…] 

The panel reviewed a dozen scientific papers on which Tessier-Lavigne is listed as a co-author after allegations of misconduct aired on PubPeer, a website where members of the scientific community can raise issues or concerns regarding scientific publications, the report stated. 

The panel cleared him of the most serious allegation, that a 2009 paper published in the scientific journal Nature, was the subject of a fraud investigation and that fraud was found.

In general, plagiarism is the death knell for one’s career in this field, and if these allegations against Gay turn out to be accurate, she must go (via Rufo)

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What should the consequences be for President Gay, given these violations? Some critics might object to any punishment, arguing that her dissertation is decades old, or that these instances of plagiarism appear to be highly technical, or even trivial. But the dissertation is the cornerstone of an academic career, and universities impose demanding standards of academic integrity, with severe consequences for violators. Harvard, in particular, has a strict policy on these matters. If a current Harvard student were to commit violations of the same nature as Gay’s, it would lead to “disciplinary action, up to and including requirement to withdraw from the College.” The same standard should apply to the university president. 

In light of this troubling evidence, we call on Harvard’s Board of Overseers to conduct a full investigation into Claudine Gay’s academic integrity. The precedent for such violations has already been set at other institutions: the president of the University of South Carolina, for example, resigned for plagiarizing remarks he made in a commencement speech; and the president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges resigned due to plagiarism that he committed in part of his dissertation. Gay’s case should be treated with equal seriousness. If she has violated the code of academic conduct, she must resign—or get voted out by the board. 

It would seem Gay’s Jewish genocide-enabling remarks are the least of her issues.

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Editor's Note: The original post said that Mr. Tessier-Lavigne falsified his research. That was inaccurate. We apologize for the oversight; the post has been updated and corrected.