Claudine Gay, the 30th president of Harvard University, announced her resignation today after just six months on the job, the shortest tenure in the university's history.
The 30th President of Harvard University has officially announced his resignation.
Claudine Gay, 53, who took office last July, became the second female president in Harvard's history, and a black one.
She is now the shortest serving president in Harvard's history, having served only six months and two days.
Harvard University released a statement explaining the incident. Gay will be replaced as interim president by chief Academic Officer and provost Alan M.Garber, who will continue to teach at Harvard.
In December last year, Gay appeared in a congressional hearing with the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and drew criticism for his unclear stance on campus.
Throughout her career, she published 17 pieces of work, eight of which were allegedly plagiarized, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
In a letter to the Harvard community, Gay said, "It is clear that it is in Harvard's best interest for me to step down so that our community can address this extraordinary moment of challenge with the university, not the individual, at its core."
Big men suspend donations, Harvard is hit hard
On July 1, 2023, Gay was officially inaugurated as the 30th President of Harvard University.
The appointment comes just two days after the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that ended Harvard's use of an admissions policy that considered an applicant's race.
At the time, the future of Harvard admissions seemed to be the central focus of Gay's presidency, which some expected to last more than a decade.
Claudine Gay was sworn in as Harvard's 30th president at an inauguration ceremony held more than three months ago
But that all changed in October, when Gay's stance in an international conflict caused discontent among those involved.
During his short tenure, Gay faced scandal after scandal, making front page news again after testifying before Congress about racism on college campuses and being accused of plagiarizing others' work in academic research.
On the other hand, she's under enormous pressure to resign.
They include Bill A. Ackman, A Harvard donor; Representative Elise M. Stefanik, Republican of New York; and Christopher F. Rufo, a conservative activist.
On Dec. 20, the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced it would expand its investigation into allegations of Gay plagiarism, saying it could jeopardize college accreditation and federal funding.
Donors are also withholding donations to Harvard, both privately and publicly.
The donor backlash sparked serious internal concerns among Harvard's fundraising staff. You know, charitable donations make up half of Harvard's annual income.
"Harvard can lose its reputation, but it can't lose its money, which is why Gay President had to resign," one netizen said.
Lawrence S. Bacow, former Harvard president and Gay's predecessor, wrote in a statement to The Crimson, "Gay was a person of great talent, integrity, and vision. She contributed so much not only to Harvard, but to higher education in general. I am sorry that she will no longer have that opportunity."
After Gay resigned on Tuesday, Harvard's provost, Alan M. Garber, became interim president of the university, effective immediately, Harvard officials said.
Currently, Garber has served as provost for 12 years and has taught at Harvard Medical School, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Harvard School of Public Health.
As interim president, Garber will face the daunting task of steering Harvard through one of its most turbulent periods in nearly two decades.
"There is much more to do, and while today has been a difficult day, I know what this community can accomplish together," he wrote in a statement on Tuesday. "I am confident that we will overcome the challenges we face and build a brighter future for Harvard."
17 jobs, 8 plagiarism?
The most direct trigger for Gay's departure was being accused of "academic misconduct."
On Monday, new plagiarism allegations surfaced against Gay. The new indictment adds about 40 counts of plagiarism and was filed by the same plaintiff.
It is likely to plunge Harvard deeper into a debate over how to define plagiarism and whether its president and students will be held to the same standards.
According to reports, Gay published 17 academic work, seven articles have been implicated in the plagiarism scandal. But the latest allegations suggest that her misconduct also involved an eighth article.
In a 2001 essay, Gay reproduced almost verbatim nearly half a page of content by David Canon, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin.
The article, "The Effect of Minority Districts and Minority Representation on Political Participation in California," Covers some of the most blatant examples of plagiarism to date.
At one point in the article, Gay directly copied Canon's 1999 book "Race, Redistricting, and Representation: The four sentences in The book "The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts" are not in quotation marks, but with only minor semantic changes.
She does not explicitly cite Canon's work in the text, although his name is mentioned in the list of references.
In addition, Gay's first two comments are directly copied from Canon's comments section.
However, Canon himself stated, "I am not at all concerned about these passages, which do not constitute a case of academic plagiarism at all."
The allegations, filed on Monday, also include more content from Gay's doctoral thesis, which has already been corrected three times.
In one new example, Gay, who studies quantitative political science, copied the entire sentence of her mentor, Gary King, describing a mathematical model without using King's name in parentheses or quotation marks.
While some Gay defenders argue that technical descriptions need not be attributed in the social sciences because there are so few ways to describe a method or formula, a handbook published by Harvard University in 1998, the year Gay completed her doctoral dissertation, argues otherwise.
The manual makes it clear that "citations let your readers know that you did not invent the strategy or method and allow them to refer to its original context."
King, who has previously downplayed Gay's allegations, did not comment.
Other new examples relate mainly to Frank Gilliam's 1996 paper "Exploring Minority Empowerment: Symbolic Politics, Governing Coalitions and Traces of Political Style in Los Angeles ", Gay cited the paper several times without attribution, with only minor textual changes in some places.
These citations describe the findings of the big picture and do not contain technical terms.
Hasty review
While Harvard's board of trustees announced in mid-December that it had reviewed Gay's published work and noted multiple "undercitations," they did not identify any of the cases cited in the new complaint.
The findings raise questions not only about the extent of Gay plagiarism - it appears that half of the publication work was affected - but also about the thoroughness and seriousness of what the board says was an "independent review conducted by distinguished political scientists."
The review of Gay's work was rushed to an end in a matter of weeks, far shorter than the six to 12 months that other plagiarism cases typically take. The board also declined to make public the names of the academics responsible for the investigation.
Jonathan Swain, a Harvard spokesman, did not comment on whether the university had fully reviewed all of Gay's work and, if so, how it missed Monday's new Revelations.
"The board's review of Gay's work was rushed and unconvincing," the complaint said. "As a result, we can now be certain that the board's investigation was merely cosmetic."
Students and teachers have different standards
As more and more Harvard students openly criticize Gay people, new complaints have surfaced. These students believe that Gay people are held to a significantly lower standard than undergraduates.
A student on Harvard's Honor Council pointed out in an anonymous opinion piece that students are routinely suspended for committing the same mistake Gay men commit: plagiarism.
Some students called for Gay's resignation, while others seemed reluctant to support their president, who is facing controversy.
The Harvard Crimson editorial headline read: "Gay President should stay on despite plagiarism allegations", adding "for now".
The paper noted that the plagiarism allegations focused on her doctoral thesis and two of the 11 academic articles she published, but did not mention the many allegations against articles that had not been peer-reviewed.
Malicious rumors? Colleagues take sides with Harvard President
Gay's strongest supporters are her colleagues in the faculty.
Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy told The New York Times that plagiarism allegations against Gay were actually a rumor spread by some "professional rumormongers" and people with "bad intentions" - and suggested that the university might not cooperate with an ongoing congressional investigation examining the university's handling of Gay work.
Charles Fried, another Harvard lawyer, was more blunt, calling the allegations "an attack on a top institution".
Harvard said in December that while Gay's article contained regrettably similar language, it did not amount to academic misconduct because it was not intentional or reckless.
The policy cited by Harvard applies only to faculty members and is much looser than the rules for students.
However, as more allegations came to light, some professors began to change their stance.
Some told the Boston Globe in December that the treatment of Gay people revealed hypocrisy and double standards.
Omar Haque, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and a member of the University's Council on Academic Freedom, notes that, especially before word processors became commonplace, it is hard to believe that the cases were all unintentional.
The response to the allegations by Harvard administration, which initially sought to suppress them by issuing legal threats to the New York Post and the anonymous whistleblower who gave the information to the Post, has had an even greater resonance.
Through Clare Locke, a law firm focused on litigation, Harvard warned in October that it would Sue for "substantial damages" if the New York Post published stories related to the allegations.
According to the newspaper, Harvard also threatened to take legal action to find out who provided the comparison material.
That anonymous person, a professor at another university, was the one who filed the complaint with Harvard on Monday, in addition to about 40 other plagiarism complaints in the last month.
While many Harvard scholars have faced accusations of plagiarism since the early 2000s, none has had such a large proportion of their work covered.
In addition to outlining the new allegations against Gay, the latest complaint - which takes 25 pages to detail numerous instances of Gay's alleged plagiarism - also points to legal intimidation in Harvard's handling of the affair, violating its rules on faculty research practices that explicitly prohibit retaliation against whistleblowers.
"At one point, Gay and Harvard University asked The Washington Post why the people who filed such complaints were reluctant to disclose their names. My concern is that Gay and Harvard might violate their rules and act like a business complex with a hedge fund instead of acting like a university, and that they might try to claim huge damages against me or even act in other unforeseen ways."
