Harvard's embattled President Claudine Gay might have thought the long Christmas weekend would quell the brewing storm of criticism against her that began with catastrophic testimony before House lawmakers about antisemitic incidents on campus and culminated — so far — with some 40 allegations of plagiarism in her limited body of scholarly work.
Then, on Christmas Eve, The New York Times ran another story on the worsening situation, highlighting meetings that have taken place between the Harvard Corporation and academics who are less-than-pleased with the way the school — specifically its 12-member governing body — has handled the turmoil.
Citing "private conversations with donors, professors, and others," the Times reported that "there are signs of tensions among board members," including over a "need to address the billowing storms" battering its public image among even those normally supportive of the institution. But those "who have tried to privately counsel the board say members have shown little concrete impetus toward changing their approach."
As Townhall reported just before Christmas, what had begun as exposés from right-of-center media outlets and reporters with a few instances of alleged ripping-off of other writers' work turned into another complaint documenting dozens more examples of supposed intellectual infringement that caught fire in mainstream outlets. CNN and The New York Times, in two notable examples, pointed out how embarrassing the scandal was for supposedly elite Harvard and their own analysis of President Gay's writings turned up "clearer examples of plagiarism."
Since then, both The New York Times and The Washington Post have run opinion pieces saying it's time for President Gay to be gone, publishing the headlines "Why Claudine Gay Should Go" and "Harvard's Claudine Gay should resign," respectively.
With increasing scrutiny of Harvard, President Gay, and its governing body, however, "the corporation had no specific answers" when pressed for more action by those who met with board members, the Times noted. Instead, "board members offered muted apologies, and promised follow-ups."
One attendee who expressed discontent said that "replacing the university's president might not be going far enough to get Harvard back on course" and that "generational change" was required to address the issues that are now coming to a head.
That includes questions about how Harvard selected Claudine Gay to be its president, announced just about a year ago in December 2022. Quoting the student-run Harvard Crimson, the Times noted that out of "more than 600 nominations" to lead Harvard, the "five-month search was the fastest at Harvard in nearly 70 years."
Even worse, now that the whole situation has come to light — including how the Harvard Corporation "did not disclose that it had been quietly investigating Dr. Gay's academic work since October, when it was first contacted by a New York Post reporter about plagiarism allegations — the board's "secretive approach and opacity has made even those who earlier rallied around Dr. Gay uncomfortable," reported the Times. As it should.
Perhaps Harvard sought to bury accusations against Gay because those accusations also implicated its own failure to properly vet her work.
From the Times:
In the past several weeks, more faculty members, donors, alumni and outsiders have raised questions about the corporation’s apparent failure to vet Dr. Gay’s scholarship before promoting her to the presidency in July and for its subsequent silence in recent weeks.
“The corporation should have done their homework, and apparently they did not,” said Avi Loeb, a Harvard science professor who has been publicly critical of the school’s response after the Hamas attack on Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed.
“They don’t engage in criticism the way they should,” Mr. Loeb said of the corporation. “They don’t want the people who disagree with them to speak with them.”
[...]
Faculty and donors say the board members, by declining to be more open, have left important questions hanging over the school and Dr. Gay. Among the most persistent: Why didn’t they disclose the investigation earlier, and when, exactly, did the corporation — and Harvard’s top administrators — first hear of the plagiarism allegations against Dr. Gay? How did a small group of conservative activists seem to know more about Dr. Gay’s scholarship than the governing body responsible for vetting her selection?
And that's the real problem here, isn't it? That Harvard was so blinded by the identity check-boxes of Claudine Gay that they didn't bother to vet her comparatively scant writing? As a former non-Ivy League college student (and thank the good Lord for that) all my papers were run through a plagiarism checker to ensure originality and proper citations, yet the Harvard Corporation didn't think it was worth skimming their presidential finalists' writing. It seems now, based on the complaints lodged against President Gay, that just one of her works would have lit up the plagiarism checker like the Fourth of July.
So, it seems the Harvard Corporation is in for even more scrutiny and a longer journey of being dragged through the mud along with its president due to the apparent failure to scrutinize Gay's scholarly work and then actively working to keep plagiarism accusations under wraps — all while getting outflanked by conservatives who have far fewer resources compared to Harvard's $50 billion endowment.
Will it be a case where the attempts to cover for President Gay end up being more damaging — especially internally — than the alleged crimes of plagiarism? Time will tell. One thing's for sure: any hopes that the Harvard Corporation or President Gay had of sweeping this under the rug have been dashed upon the rocks of the harsh reality that actions have consequences.