Claudine Gay can’t get out of the spotlight after the Harvard University president’s record as a scholar continues to be investigated, with six new accusations of plagiarism coming out in recent days. The recent scrutiny of Gay likely played a part in her reported resignation as the leader of the storied university just months after taking over last July.
Gay and two other elite university presidents have been under fire for weeks after they struggled to field questions from Congress about how their universities handle antisemitism on campus since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7. The initial criticism of her testimony morphed into a storm of plagiarism accusations shortly after the congressional hearing, amounting to dozens of allegations.
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The accusations of plagiarism escalated this week when the Washington Free Beacon reported new examples, bringing the total number of plagiarism concerns to eight out of Gay’s 17 published academic works. The outlet cited a 2001 article from Gay, alleging almost half a page of material was plagiarized from David Canon, a scholar from the University of Wisconsin.
Allegedly plagiarized sentences from David Canon
A complaint obtained by the outlet on Monday included multiple plagiarism allegations in Gay’s article from over two decades ago, “The Effect of Minority Districts and Minority Representation on Political Participation in California.” The complaint states Gay’s article included four sentences with minimal changes from Canon’s 1999 book, Race, Redistricting, and Representation: The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts.
Canon wrote: “The VRA is often cited as one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation passed in our nation’s history.”
Gay wrote: “The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is often cited as one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation passed in our nation’s history.”
Canon told the Washington Free Beacon he was not worried about the passages Gay seemingly referred to in her 2001 article, denouncing the allegations of academic plagiarism.
“I am not at all concerned about the passages,” Canon said. “This isn’t even close to an example of academic plagiarism.”
Continuing on, multiple sections of Gay’s paragraph below use identical language and terminology to Canon’s piece.
Canon wrote: “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 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.”
The outlet also outlined how Gay’s first two footnotes are copied nearly word-for-word from Canon’s endnotes.
Allegedly plagiarized work from Gary King
The university’s president is also being accused of taking text from her own thesis adviser, Gary King, who has denounced plagiarism allegations previously. The latest allegations again stem from Gay’s dissertation, in which she uses a similar sentence that has been written by King to describe a mathematical model.
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 wrote: “The posterior distribution of each of the precinct parameters for precinct i is derived by the slice it’s tomography line cuts out of this bivariate distribution.”
Allegedly plagiarized work from Franklin Gilliam
Other new examples include multiple paragraphs using language from Franklin D. Gilliam Jr.’s 1996 paper, “Exploring Minority Empowerment: Symbolic Politics, Governing Coalitions and Traces of Political Style in Los Angeles,” without using quotation marks.
Gilliam wrote: “In other words, after an extended period of minority empowerment, what is the distribution of political attitudes between and within racial and ethnic groups? Which groups and subgroups positively evaluate the results of governmental action and which groups will hold more negative views? What are the important demographic and political correlates of how citizens respond to minority empowerment?”
Gay wrote: “More explicitly, what is the distribution of political attitudes between and within racial groups in black-represented districts? How do groups evaluate the presence of black incumbents? What are the important demographic and political correlates of how citizens respond to minority political leadership?”
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Questions about plagiarism arose in Gay’s 1997 doctoral dissertation, which Harvard said contained two articles with “duplicative language without appropriate attribution.” A review by Harvard in mid-December found articles needing additional citations and reported Gay requested corrections.
Two students called for Gay’s resignation despite the university’s support in an editorial published in the Harvard Crimson this weekend, writing, “The Harvard Corporation must find a leader who can do better.” In a separate piece, the Harvard Crimson’s editorial board backed Gay but said it believes some of the accusations against her “are indeed plagiarism.”
