Harvard University's president, Claudine Gay, is facing even more accusations of plagiarism, pushing the total number of claims against her to nearly 50.
Gay has been dealing with these allegations for the past six weeks, which initially surged after her response to the October 7 Hamas attack drew widespread attention. Calls for her resignation have intensified following controversies surrounding her handling of antisemitism and alleged plagiarism in her previous works, as per Daily Mail.
Harvard Students Demand President's Resignation
In an editorial published in the Harvard Crimson, two students voiced their demand for Gay's resignation, citing a series of scandals that have plagued the university. The students mentioned their doubts about Gay's leadership, particularly regarding her testimony before Congress and response to antisemitism on campus.
They criticized her handling of the crisis, stating that she sent out multiple detached emails to the student body and stumbled in her testimony before facing international criticism. The students also highlighted the emergence of evidence indicating that Gay plagiarized portions of several academic papers, adding that the situation seems to worsen with each passing week.
The editorial further discussed how Harvard's failures have become a dominant topic in the news and have disrupted the academic environment on campus, affecting teaching and research, which are the core missions of the university. The students expressed their exhaustion as they called for Gay's departure, asserting that her continuation only harms the university.
The dissenting editorial was in contrast to the stance taken by the rest of the student newspaper's editorial board, which argued for Gay to remain in her position, at least for now. The two students who authored the dissent criticized the board for not reckoning with the seriousness of Gay's failures and dismissing the instances of explicit plagiarism as insufficient grounds for her resignation.
The controversy surrounding Gay began after her congressional testimony on antisemitism alongside two other university presidents, which received widespread criticism. Despite this, Harvard decided to retain Gay, whereas University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned in the aftermath, according to Washington Examiner.
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Plagiarism Allegations Against Harvard President
The allegations of plagiarism against Gay escalated when the conservative outlet, The Washington Free Beacon, discovered concerns of plagiarism in four of Gay's papers from the 1990s. However, an analysis conducted by the Harvard Corporation did not find any violations of the university's standards for research misconduct. Gay is reportedly taking proactive measures to make corrections and insert citations and quotation marks in the original publications.
In the op-ed written by the two students, they acknowledged that Gay may be a good person and a commendable scholar but argued that these qualities are insufficient for her to remain president. They emphasized that the leader of such a prestigious university must be held to a higher standard, which Gay unfortunately failed to meet.
The Harvard Crimson's editorial board published a separate op-ed advocating against Gay's resignation, stating that while there are concerning allegations, they still have faith in their leader. They also suggested that the outrage surrounding the issue has been manufactured by conservative activists aiming to discredit higher education.
The calls for resignation continue to escalate, and the fate of Claudine Gay's presidency at Harvard University remains uncertain, The Hill reported.