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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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.”
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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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