The Real Claudine Gay Scandal By Robert Weissberg
Dr. Claudine, current President of Harvard University, is one lucky woman or, as she might describe herself a “a lucky woman of color.” She first survived her dreadful testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, where she refused to unambiguously denounce calls from Harvard students and faculty to kill all Israeli Jews. It was an embarrassing performance filled with weasel words and amorphous defenses such as “it all depends on context” as if genocide might be legitimate in some circumstances.
Gay’s second lucky break was to survive clear-cut evidence that she was a career plagiarist, and this scholarly dishonesty far exceeded inadvertent sloppiness. Side-by-side comparisons of Gay’s writings with the published work of others displayed smoking-gun proof, and the official Harvard definition of “plagiarism” offered zero wiggle room due to substituting a new word or two for the original. No student or faculty member of Harvard could possibly accept Gay’s excuses and, ironically, as a Harvard dean Gay had presided over the expulsion of 27 undergraduates for plagiarism. Predictably, she denied everything: “I stand by the integrity of my scholarship,” she wrote. “Throughout my career, I have worked to ensure my scholarship adheres to the highest academic standards.” Keep in mind the former Harvard president Larry Summers suffered defenestration for merely opining that men and woman differed in mathematical abilities.
But, once again, luck was with her. The Harvard Corporation, Harvard’s governing body, praised her work (blatant plagiarism was referred to as “a few instances of inadequate citations), 700 faculty members signed a letter of support, and a group of former Harvard presidents proclaimed, “As former Presidents of Harvard University, we offer our strong support for Claudine Gay as she leads Harvard into the future. We look forward to supporting President Gay in whatever ways we can as Harvard faces this challenging moment for higher education and the wider world.”
Harvard’s malfeasance runs deeper, namely how did Claudine Gay become Dr. Claudine Gay, Ph.D., and this tale goes to the very core of Harvard’s intellectual integrity.
Schools like Harvard depend on admitting graduate students to perform vital “grunt work” such as grading undergraduate papers or teaching sections of large classes. They are vital to the university and are attracted to Ph.D. programs in the hope of eventually becoming a professor but unfortunately, in today’s diversity-obsessed market, many will fail to find academic jobs or be underemployed part-time teachers.
By contrast, recruiting Blacks, especially Black women, into a Ph.D. program is highly tempting, even if their academic records are less than stellar. A Black woman will undoubtedly receive full financial support, and if she eventually receives the Ph.D. will find a decent job, and this placement will reflect well on the school awarding her the doctorate. In short, Claudine Gay was a prize recruit for Harvard’s Department of Government where she earned her Ph.D. in 1998.
It is also an open secret among academics that faculty enjoy enormous leeway in shepherding graduate students toward the degree. The Ph.D. formally signifies an ability to conduct independent research but how this “independent work” is executed can vary. In some instances, graduate students assist their supervisor’s research, and receive their degrees as rewards for their contribution. Elsewhere professors may provide considerable help in choosing topics, securing funding, directing them toward the relevant literature, resolving research quandaries, even helping to draft the final product, so the final dissertation heavily reflects the professor’s contribution. All this is academically acceptable, often commendable, but the process can resemble sausage making — the Ph.D. label itself can never fully certify how the product was manufactured.
Technically, every dissertation is subject to scrutiny by the graduate student’s main advisor and their dissertation committee bur again, variations exist. Dissertation defenses can consist entirely of softball questions or be gruesome inquisitions. Much leeway exists and a friendly committee can easily assume that the data were not faked, interviews were not invented, and works cited were read, and so on. Everything depends on trust, and it is often the case that only the most egregious stupid errors will be caught, but even then, corrections can save the day and the degree awarded.
When experienced academics see how Claudine Gay got away with multiple plagiarisms they can only conclude, to use the lingo of boxing, that the fix was in. Her dissertation committee and top administrators took a dive. I personally suspect that her dissertation was just skimmed, not carefully read.
To be blunt, here was a Black woman in a discipline (“Government” at Harvard) in high demand thanks to her Harvard Ph.D., so her ascent to academic stardom was assured. No matter that her scholarship was almost exclusively about Black politics, and not particularly original while hewing to the radical orthodoxy on Black politics. She was a trophy, so in today’s political environment, few might risk putting her scholarship under a microscope to find fault. Why ruin a good thing?
This entire episode appears to be a breakdown of quality control, and in the final analysis, it exposes a deeper scandal than her morally tone-deaf congressional testimony. This scandal that strikes at Harvard’s most valued asset — its reputation for academic integrity.
Adding insult to injury, this breakdown of the most minimal scholarly quality control was purposeful, not something resulting from overwork or laziness. Intellectual integrity is part of every professor’s job, and Harvard routinely expels students caught plagiarizing, so expelling one more miscreant — namely Claudine Gay — would not be out of character.
The professors reading her plagiarized papers probably knew it when they saw it, or if they had their doubts, could have used any number of plagiarism software programs to confirm their suspicions. More relevant, experienced professors — and this would certainly include her eminent advisors — have a fine nose for detecting material that stands apart from the rest of the paper. To those familiar with their discipline’s published literature, it is simple to recognize the work of fellow scholars. Professors pride themselves on knowing “the literature” is it is bizarre to suggest that those reading Gay’s writings failed to recognize the uncited original sources. Maybe once or twice, but not repeatedly.
Harvard needs an official inquiry into how all these distinguished, tenured academic luminaries failed at their quality-control responsibilities. No different than when the FAA investigates an airplane crash. Let each witness explain how they permitted a serial plagiarizer to earn a Harvard Ph.D. when similar offenses would have brought expulsion for lessor mortals. What facilitated this academic incompetence? Was it Gay’s skin color? Her past strident racial radicalism? Perhaps her winning charm? Ample evidence suggests that everything was about “diversity.”
This trial would include dozens of Harvard faculty and administrators would testify, and, no doubt, the public would relish watching the best and brightest hem and haw regarding why they failed to notice blatant plagiarism and then remained silent. Put the Harvard miscreants under oath so if these distinguished scholars commit perjury, they will lose their tenure and be fired.
Surely a scandal for prime-time TV, and who knows, future Harvard students accused of plagiarisms may now invoke “the Gay rule” in their defense: it takes at last two dozen instances of intellectual thievery for a conviction. A whole new meaning of colorblind justice.
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