harry rakowski: weaponized plagiarism another unwanted escalation of culture war
allegations like those faced by neri oxman, harvard's claudine gay should be taken seriously and ensure due process
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then-edgerley family dean of harvard's faculty of arts and sciences claudine gay addresses an audience during commencement ceremonies, may 25, 2023, on the school's campus in cambridge, mass. gay, harvard university's president, resigned tuesday, jan. 2, 2024, amid plagiarism accusations and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say unequivocally that calls on campus for the genocide of jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.
ap photo/steven senne
claudine gay was forced to resign from her post as president of harvard university earlier this month. this was not simply because she couldn’t bring herself to admit that hate speech against jews violated harvard’s code of conduct. rather, it took a slow drip of plagiarism accusations against many entries on her thin list of academic publications to convince the harvard corporation that her position was no longer tenable. her resignation marks a turning point in the culture war: the investigation of plagiarism has been weaponized.
gay said after resigning that, “it has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who i am.”
she and many others portrayed her forced resignation as an example of racism and unfair “right-wing” attacks on her reputation. gay has sadly been the victim of personal, vicious, racist threats because she is black. it speaks to the hate that is still all too present in the united states — hate that was also felt by jewish students on her campus, whom she sadly failed to protect from equally offensive hate speech.
but gay’s exit and the events that led to it can’t simply be written off as a racist attack on a black woman. her commitment to fighting hate was easily put into question by harvard’s poor record of distinguishing free speech from hate speech. similarly, her academic integrity was brought under scrutiny after her embarrassing congressional testimony. an effort was made, particularly by conservative media, to examine her scholarship. investigations by the washington free beacon and the new york post have alleged nearly 50 instances of plagiarism in gay’s work.
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does it matter that the exposure of her plagiarism was led by conservative political activists and newspapers? even if their publication was politically motivated, the reports were accurate, after all.
the university of oxford defines plagiarism as, “presenting work or ideas from another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgment.” it occurs all too often in scholarly work, sometimes by deceit, but often in more benign forms due to laziness.
harvard’s policy on responding to allegations of research misconduct are very clear: “integrity in scholarship and research is one of the university’s fundamental values. thus, allegations of misconduct in scholarship and research must be treated with the utmost seriousness and examined carefully and responsibly.”
the policy goes on to state that, “harvard community members may not retaliate in any way against complainants, witnesses, the (research integrity officer) or committee members.”
allegations of plagiarism from any source should be reviewed by a university research integrity officer, says the policy. the process has clear rules and often takes months to fairly complete. it requires an assessment of how serious, extensive, purposeful and impactful the plagiarism is.
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harvard’s policy also states that a determination of misconduct can result in a range of consequences, including suspension, rank reduction and termination of employment. so why did harvard not follow these guidelines in this case?
since the levelling of allegations against gay, business insider appears to have also weaponized academic misconduct. it reported examples of minor plagiarism with incomplete citation by neri oxman, wife of billionaire bill ackman and former distinguished massachusetts institute of technology (mit) professor. ackman was a prominent voice calling for gay’s resignation.
oxman, now an entrepreneur, has a much larger publication record than gay and holds numerous patents. and while gay initially minimized her plagiarism allegations, writing in the new york times that, “never did i imagine needing to defend decades-old and broadly respected research,” oxman immediately apologized.
the atlantic recently declared that “the great plagiarism war has begun.” ackman on x vowed retaliation for the attack on his wife, which he suspected was made as a result of a tip by an mit faculty member to business insider. he is now initiating an ai-based plagiarism review of all mit faculty, its president, sally kornbluth and members of mit’s board.
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plagiarism is a serious business. its importance should be reviewed fairly by the due process of university standards, and not the press. we have enough weaponization and outright slander in politics that shouldn’t spill over into academia.
that said, gay’s instances of plagiarism broke the rules. even if they were relatively minor cases of unattributed quotes, gay demonstrated a pattern and an unfortunate degree of sloppiness by a president of harvard, who should be held to a higher standard of academic behaviour.
when gay didn’t display her two avowed bedrocks of “confronting hate” and “scholarly rigor,” plagiarism accusations tipped the scales to force her resignation. harvard, given its reputation for academic excellence, needs to uphold the highest standard of scholarship. its board failed to meet that standard and so did its president.
accusations of plagiarism need to be taken seriously with due process for those accused. they shouldn’t result in trial by media and another form of cancel culture. weaponizing the investigation of plagiarism is another unwanted escalation in the culture war that will further decrease trust in academic institutions and jeopardize higher education.
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