Revealed: Harvard cleared Claudine Gay of plagiarism BEFORE investigating her — and its lawyers falsely claimed her work was ‘properly cited’
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Harvard cleared its president Claudine Gay of plagiarism before it even investigated whether her academic work was copied, The Post reveals today.
In a threatening legal letter to The Post in late October, the college called allegations that she lifted other academics’ work “demonstrably false,” and said all her works were “cited and properly credited.”
Days later Gay herself asked for an investigation and Harvard tore up its own rules to ask outside experts to review her work, saying it had to avoid a conflict of interest.
And the experts then found she did need to make multiple corrections to her academic record.
The bare-knuckled law firm Harvard employed to try to keep the plagiarism allegations from ever coming to light told The Post it would sue for “immense” damages.
Harvard never revealed an investigation had been launched as the lawyers put pressure on The Post to kill its reporting.
But more than a month later, on December 12 Harvard said Gay had been investigated by its top governing body and was correcting two academic journals, to acknowledge where her work had really come from — meaning the claim it was “properly credited” was false.
Then this week she had to correct her own dissertation after new allegations of using others’ academic work without attribution surfaced — and was hit by an official complaint from an academic at another university which alleges 40 separate incidents of plagiarism in her 11 published works and her dissertation.
Now Gay is at the center of a wide-ranging Congressional probe into her academic record and Republican lawmakers say they are willing to subpoena Harvard over the college’s apparent sham investigation.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY), a Harvard alumna, told The Post: “Harvard University’s pathetic record of stifling free speech has expanded beyond campus, threatening the New York Post following their investigation and coverage of Claudine Gay’s history of serial plagiarism.
“This attempt at bullying and subsequent censorship is entirely unacceptable; the Congressional investigation will use every tool at our disposal including subpoena power to expose the rot of antisemitism plaguing higher education and the hypocrisy of the poisoned ivy towers of Harvard. This is a reckoning.”
This was some of the language used in the 15-page letter from attorneys Clare Locke to The Post in an attempt to suppress the claims against Gay. The Post continued its investigation.
The letter included language calling allegations of plagiarism “demonstrably false” even though they had not been investigated by Harvard. And it said that Harvard was standing with Gay in demanding The Post stop investigating.
The Post’s disclosure of how Harvard cleared Gay without investigating her, then aggressively tried to cover up the probe, thrusts the actions of the head of its governing body, billionaire Hyatt heiress Penny Pritzker into the spotlight.
How Pritzker — the Senior Fellow of the Harvard Corporation who was a commerce secretary under Pres. Obama — handled the crisis will now come under scrutiny. A member of her household staff told The Post Thursday that Pritzker was not available to comment. Harvard declined to confirm Friday that she knew the contents of the legal letter before it was sent.
Pritzker is coming into focus, just as the plagiarism storm finally gains attention from left-leaning media including CNN and the New York Times — whose opinion writer John McWhorter demanded Thursday that Harvard fire Gay over “the sheer amount of plagiarism.” If it won’t, she must resign, he wrote.
Harvard’s smokescreen to save Gay began on October 24, when The Post asked for comment on a dossier of allegations sent to us anonymously that alleged she had plagiarized parts of three published works.
After a lengthy investigation of the dossier, we presented 27 possible examples of plagiarism in two peer-reviewed journals and an academic magazine, published between 1993, when Gay was a graduate student, and 2017, when she was dean of the faculty of social sciences.
Jonathan Swain, Harvard’s senior director of communications and a long-time Democratic aide, asked The Post for more time to respond.
But three days later Harvard responded with a blistering letter from Clare Locke, a law firm which previously represented the Sackler family, Matt Lauer, and Russian oligarchs after the invasion of Ukraine.
It also represented Dominion Voting Systems in its lawsuit against Fox News. The Post’s parent company NewsCorp shares the same ownership as Fox News’ parent company, Fox Corporation.
Partner Tom Clare, who signed the letter, did not respond to request for comment Friday afternoon.
The Post presented this of possible plagiarism, published in Urban Affairs Review in 2017, when Gay was dean of social science at Harvard. Harvard’s lawyers told us it was “properly cited,” but weeks later Harvard said she was asking to have it correct to add quote marks and citation.
This was one of the 27 instances which The Post asked Harvard to comment on. It was published in the peer-reviewed journal Urban Affairs in 2011. Williamson said it was not plagiarism and Harvard’s lawyers told The Post it was “correctly cited,” but it is one of the works which Harvard said Gay would ask to have correctly credited in her 2017 paper.
Clare Locke said it was representing both Harvard and Gay.
“These allegations of plagiarism are demonstrably false,” the law firm wrote — suggesting that Harvard had cleared Gay already.
“Harvard and President Gay stand together in their determination that the proposed article must not be published.
“The Post must not move forward with the proposed article.”
It claimed that any suggestion of plagiarism “rests on a fatally flawed understanding of what ‘plagiarism’ is (and is not) in scholarly work performed in academic journals and settings.”
Among the 27 instances which The Post asked Harvard to comment on was this example from Gay’s work when she was a postgraduate student, published in a specialist magazine. Harvard did not review the 1993 work at all, in part because of its age. Covin is dead.
This was a second instance from, Urban Affairs Review in 2017, when Gay was dean of social science at Harvard. Ansolabehere said in a statement given through Harvard’s lawyers that it was not plagiarism. Gay has not sought to have it updated.
It also accused The Post of conducting “facile comparisons of similar phrases” to assess whether there was evidence which would support plagiarism allegations. Plagiarism means copying without attribution.
The letter rounded up statements from academics using college letterheads — whose work The Post had found bore striking resemblance to Gay’s — to say that they did not believe they had been plagiarized.
One of the academics, George Reid Andrews, a professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh whose work Gay had appeared to use in an essay without attribution when she was a graduate student at Harvard, told The Post Thursday that he stood by that statement — but that he did not know that it would be used to threaten The Post.
And in the letter Harvard launched a bizarre conspiracy theory, that the plagiarism allegations were produced by The Post asking ChatGPT.
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It's like Harvard has set out to prove the validity of every conservative criticism of it. Bullying, lying threatening media and betraying every principle of what universities are supposed to stand for in order to defend the progressive movement. Hard to believe how low it's willing to go to protect a mediocre scholar and admitted plagiarist.
We even have a Harvard law professor claiming her plagiarism shouldn't be looked into because of the type of people providing the evidence. Others have argued that her plagiarism is okay because some of the authors she stole from are okay with it. That doesn't even work in sixth grade..
By 2023, I don’t find it hard to believe, I’m sure it’s in their SOP.
Obviously the political right has a hard on to embarrass the president of Harvard. No one cares about this, but after right wing media gets finished setting its hair on fire over this, maybe the MAGA that cant even spell plagiarism will.
Thanks for making the point so nicely. Harvard, and people like you, will defend her because their only principle is defending their partisan side. As long as she’s a “*good progressive” who pushes racialist nonsense, she’ll get away with anything because you can’t let conservatives “win.”
cover up, lie, threaten media, it’s all fair when progressives partisan demand it. Ironic how progressives of 50 years ago have become acolytes of nixon. Modern Progressive politics in action. Rules apply for the little people but not to the powerful who are above such things.
A couple years ago, The university of South Carolina fired its president when he plagiarized part of a speech. One instance was enough, because, as a state representative said, “He's brought a lot of negative attention to the university…. We are the laughingstock of the nation.”
gay has over allegations against her currently. I guess the university of South Carolina has higher standards of integrity than Harvard.
The average American doesnt care about this at all, UNLESS and UNTIL right wing media tells them they should be. End of story.
The truth is the only reason the right is blowing this story up is because of their beliefs about "racialist nonsense" .
So that’s the standard. Lying, covering up, threatening media is all okay because progressives don’t care about such things. That’s what they want the people in power to do.
I dont care about the president of Harvard, and I bet you 250 million other Americans dont either. The MAGA will care because their media is making it a big deal. Harvard can fire her, flog her, lock her in her room, I dont care.
The question is why doesn't Harvard care about it. Are they holding their students to different standards than their president and if so why?
You seem to be spending alot of time defending something you don't care about.
did she get the job because she's an excellent, world renowned scholar, or because she's a gay, black women who pushed Harvard to get rid of the presence of "white men" on campus?
That she can remain President despite preforming acts that would get a student expelled has done more damage to the DEI movement than a million Christopher Rufos ever could.
Exactly, why should you care. You nor your family goes to school there, your not employed there, and you don’t donate money there. Why give a fuck what Harvard does.
The president of Harvard embarrassed herself. And she continues to do so.
Exactly, Harvard’s policy in student plagiarism was never meant to apply after the fact to their President.
Claudine Gay has been smart not to have published books like her predecessors did. That would have likely resulted in additional plagiarism charges.
The integrity of one’s academic work pales in comparison to all the other skills that she brings.
The optics are the most important issue here and it would look just terrible to can a Black, female president.
More or less. Tell me why this is a national political issue.
It's Harvard
Antisemitism is rampant on many college campuses.
She embarrassed herself in front of congress and the world.
It's not a national issue to me. Most informed folks know well of Harvard's approach.
“No one cares about this,”
actually, i think a lot of people that pay attention, care, because most people aren’t able to lie, cheat, and steal their way to a cushy, high paying, prestigious job. Admit it. You take this attitude because she’s black. I think it’s safe to assume, judging by the post, that some are perfectly fine with lowered standards as long as the DIE agenda is met. That attitude is a future disaster for the US.
She is an embarrassment to herself, and harvard, just like post #2 is an embarrassment to it’s author an newstalkers.
Not at all. My attitude is based on the timing of all this. A week or so ago she was under fire for her comments on anti-semitism, and Harvard didnt fire her. Now she is getting hit on something else because Harvard didnt fire her.
People are looking into her background because her school and testimony put her in the spotlight. Liberal media does this all the time and you often post the articles. Why is this a surprising?
Exactly, plagiarism and draft dodging didn't keepo Biden from the presidency. Draft dodging didn't keep Trump out of the WH. Why should plagiarism effect the president of Harvard?
Exactly, timing is to blame. The right sat on this plagiarism issue to spring it now.
“People are looking into her background because her school and testimony put her in the spotlight.”
Exactly!
Here is what Harvard tells students about plagiarism:
“Taking credit for anyone else’s work is stealing, and it is unacceptable in all academic situations, whether you do it intentionally or by accident.”
“It’s not enough to have good intentions and to cite some of the material you use.”
“When you write papers in college, your work is held to the same standards of citation as the work of your professors.”
But the President isn’t. Different standards for different folk.
Exactly.
Well someone cared about it enough to seed an article about it...and several people cared enough to discuss it.
And I would imagine that many parents who were encouraging their kids to apply to Harvard because they thought it had high standards may also care about it.
That’s because hiring her, checked off a lot of boxes academia like Harvard, likes to check.