Claudine Gay's Replication Crisis
I plagiarized this title
tl;dr
Claudine Gay engaged in minor plagiarism many times.
Confirmed by multiple outlets not just conservative activists
Plagiarism is a pretext for wanting Gay to resign.
Some (e.g. Rufo) are opposed to Gay for ideological/political reasons.
Some (e.g. Bill Ackman) are opposed to Gay for permissive posture towards antisemitism on campus
Gay’s resignation is appropriate because, regardless of why her accusers accuse, she is still guilty.
You cannot hold a university president to a lower standard than the students.
Plagiarism is an issue of academic honesty and integrity.
The above is my quick summary of the Claudine Gay plagiarism scandal. If you want to learn how I got there, read on!
Our Story so Far…
First, Claudine Gay and presidents of other prestigious universities testified in Congress in front of the House Education and Workforce Committee. The subject of the testimony was antisemitism on college campuses and the conflict with free speech.
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) asked Gay and colleagues whether calling for the genocide of Jews on campus would be a code of conduct violation. Each university president responded that it would depend on context.
Stefanik seemed angered by the response - repeating her question multiple times and insisting on a different answer. According to Stefanik calling for the genocide of Jews would obviously violate Harvard’s code of conduct.
Language in the Harvard Code of Conduct validates Gay’s answer - context is important.
It is important to note here that speech not specifically directed against individuals in a harassing way may be protected by traditional safeguards of free speech, even though the comments may cause considerable discomfort or concern to others in the community.
Stefanik seemed not to accept that there was any context which would make calling for the genocide of Jews permissible. Let me try to articulate such a context - suppose students in a History class were discussing the issue of Israel and Palestine. One student says “I think Palestinians are justified in using force to evict the Israelis from their land.” Another student replies “That would amount to genocide.” The first student agrees but says it is morally justified - would Harvard’s code of conduct prohibit this exchange?
Likely not, nor should it. Students at college should be free to discuss even controversial ideas and Harvard’s Student Handbook agrees.
Stefanik, I assume she reads this blog, might say that the antisemitism that did occur on campus was unlike the scholarly debate I described above. That’s true. However, if you admit that there are contexts where calling for genocide is permissible and there are contexts where it is not, then you acknowledge that Gay was correct - context matters.
Stefanik was not the only person to object to Gay’s answer. Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman wrote on X -
This could be the most extraordinary testimony ever elicited in the Congress, certainly on the topic of genocide
Ackman posted repeatedly on X about the issue - forcefully calling for the resignation of Gay along with the other testifying presidents (Penn President Magill resigned within 4 days).
In the weeks following Ackman repeatedly reposted content from conservative activist Christopher Rufo. Rufo published accusations that Claudine Gay had committed multiple instances of plagiarism.
In the following days other outlets would add to the plagiarism accusations. The New York Times reports that there were over 40 instances of alleged plagiarism. Ultimately, Gay would resign from the presidency and resume her role as a tenured professor of government and African American studies1.
Judgments
Did President Gay commit plagiarism?
Yes.
I have not looked into every instance of alleged plagiarism. Every instance I have looked into strikes me as exceedingly minor. Here is an example reported in the Washington Free Beacon.
Gay is investigating the relationship between voter turnout in a precinct and share of the population that is black. The authors that Gay copies from have a similar inquiry but a different result. The original authors find that voter turnout decreases as a population becomes more black. Gay finds the opposite - an increase. Gay copies language from the original and then adapts it, slightly, to fit her findings.
Other instances of plagiarism that I have examined are similar to this. Gay is copying language rather than results. This is plagiarism but it must be the weakest and least meaningful kind of plagiarism.
Plagiarism was a pretext?
Yes.
We cannot know anyone’s internal motivations. My intuition is that for people like Christopher Rufo the motives had more to do with attacking a political and ideological enemy and less to do with a commitment to academic integrity. Likewise, my intuition is that Bill Ackman and people like him are more concerned with antisemitism and public sentiment related to the Israel Palestine situation.
What should happen to Gay?
She did the right thing by resigning.
Even though the plagiarism was a pretext and it was only technically plagiarism - she still did it dozens of times. You can’t hold undergraduates to a higher standard than the university president.
By resigning the presidency but retaining her professorship Gay has struck the right balance. There are consequences for plagiarism, even if minor, even if you hold a powerful position - but those consequences don’t have to be total. We’ve all learned a lesson here.
Stray Thoughts
I’ve seen what are ostensibly defenses of Gay that I want to collect and rebut here.
Others plagiarize too!
When researching this topic I’ve come across many varieties of this complaint. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch plagiarized! Neri Oxman (wife of Bill Ackman) allegedly plagiarized parts of her dissertation. If you think about it, Columbus “discovering” America is like plagiarism (~26 seconds in).
None of these “what-about-isms” address the central issue. Either what Gay did amounts to plagiarism or it doesn’t. The bad actions of others do not exonerate Gay. If she is a serial plagiarist then she is not a suitable figure for president of a university. Maybe Bill Ackman’s wife isn’t a good choice for Harvard president either. Should Gorsuch step down? Do his issues with academic dishonesty necessitate it? Maybe - but whether they do or not has nothing to do with Claudine Gay.
Christopher Rufo doesn’t have a master’s from Harvard!
Reporting in the New Republic points out that a Rufo bio claimed (Rufo quickly corrected) a master’s from Harvard whereas Rufo’s master’s degree is from the Harvard Extension School. The Harvard Extension School is an open enrollment institution and not exactly what people first think of when they hear the phrase “Harvard degree”.
It may be true that Rufo has misrepresented his degree - but that doesn’t change whether or not Gay committed plagiarism and it doesn’t change whether or not she should step down.
This is culture war!
The culture war certainly motivates many, perhaps all, of Gay’s critics. The question for Harvard’s leadership is whether the culture war is what motivates them. Did Gay plagiarize? Is plagiarism acceptable from the university president? I think the answers are yes and no, and even if the accusations are surfaced for political motives - if the accusations are true then Harvard should treat them as such.
This is because Gay is black!
Liz Magill who testified at the same hearing and drew ire from the same people is white and she was dismissed without any accusations of plagiarism - so it’s hard to see how race is the motivating cause.
Some of the authors Gay plagiarized say it’s okay!
Stephen Voss is interviewed in the New Yorker and he describes the situation in a similar way to how I have.
What I teach my students, and what most people in the social sciences teach their students, is that borrowing either large chunks of text or a paragraph’s exact logic constitutes plagiarism. So, yes, that’s technically plagiarism.
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From my perspective, what she did was trivial—wholly inconsequential. That’s the reason I’ve so actively tried to defend her.
The problem with plagiarism is not hurt feelings from the copied authors. The issue is academic integrity.
Imagine you were at a gas station and saw your banker. At a moment when nobody else is looking your banker reaches out and takes all the pennies from the “take a penny leave a penny” tray. I wouldn’t want such a person as my banker. Would you?
The issue is not the magnitude of the ethical lapse, it is only a few cents after all. The issue is with the banker’s integrity. If the banker is willing to cheat here, when stakes are low, what is the banker doing with my money - where stakes are high?
Analogously, Claudine Gay’s plagiarism is not that consequential but repeatedly plagiarizing does speak to an integrity issue. Academics are often experts in a narrow field. As a society we trust experts to gain expertise on a matter and publish what they’ve learned for the benefit of the rest of us. Being able to trust our academics is actually important.
This is overblown!
I’m most sympathetic to this objection. The plagiarism from Gay that I have seen strikes me as insubstantial - it would take trivial efforts to convert the copied text to a properly sourced citation or original wording. That said, I agree with an argument published in Harvard’s school newspaper. The author of that argument, an anonymous member of Harvard’s Honor Council, which oversees plagiarism complaints, observes that a Harvard student would be punished for doing what Gay did and punished more severely for repeated infractions - Gay is accused of more than 40 instances of plagiarism.
There is one standard for me and my peers and another, much lower standard for our University’s president. The Corporation should resolve the double standard by demanding her resignation.
What if I had done this?
One question that keeps recurring to me is: What if I had done this? How would I feel about myself.
This is a challenging question because I’m not an academic. I’ve never done a master’s program or written a published scientific article. I honestly don’t recall if I ever plagiarized for an essay for school. I probably have - if I’m being honest, but something about cheating to get a grade to pass a class feels different from plagiarizing in a paper that is meant to be published.
In this very blog I copied two things without proper attribution. First, the title I copied from a clever tweet I saw (but now can’t find). Second, I copied Gay’s job description from a New York Times article. If I were to write a hundred more blog posts will someone come along and say I have plagiarized 200 times? Would they be right? Should my practices here disqualify me from leading Harvard?
I mentioned that the previous argument was the one I had the most sympathy for. This argument leaves me feeling most unsure.
I copied and pasted the description of Gay’s job from the New York Times - is this plagiarism? It seems very similar to what Gay did.
Apologies in advance for the length here, but I feel this topic warrants it.
I believe it is best to discuss this topic in four phases: (1) Are the instances of alleged plagiarism a serious violation? (2) Of what weight should Ackman/Rufo’s efforts matter? (3) Were the plagiarism allegations/instances necessary for the ouster of Gay? and (4) Was Gay’s congressional testimony unfairly received, and should it play no role in the movement to oust Gay?
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For the first topic “Are the instances of alleged plagiarism a serious violation?” I’d take this in three turns: (A) Is this conduct that students at Harvard would be reprimanded for? (B) Are the instances trivial/minor? And (C) is this conduct that should be acceptable for a university president (let alone Harvard University’s president)?
At the outset, it is worth noting that the verbatim usage of others’ work has been tallied to reach about 50 instances across Gay’s 17 published works. And eight of the 17 works include such verbatim instances. I know during your live streams you had the position “well the dissertation is 200+ pages, and a few instances of verbatim use of other words in here are not significant” (notwithstanding that I suspect the dissertation length dwarfs the length of the 16 other published works by Gay).
Regarding (A), I don’t think it is controversial that a single instance of the allegations – let alone such prevalent verbatim use of others language -- would be plagiarism under Harvard’s standards, as applied to students. In fact, even the soft paraphrasing (what I like to refer to as “seventh-grade paraphrasing”) of thesaurus-ing a verb or noun here or there is not sufficient to overcome an obligation to directly quote source material. Citing Harvard’s 1998 handbook “If your own sentences follow the source so closely in idea and sentence structure that the result is really closer to quotation than to paraphrase, you are plagiarizing, even if you have cited the source”. Students would be reprimanded for a single of the alleged 50 instances of plagiarism by Gay.
On (B), I cannot wrap my head around your characterization of these instances as minor – of course they are major violations. This is academic writing – not casual blogging or even journalism. If you present language as your own formulation, you are misleading the reader. There are two victims of plagiarism: (i) the plagiarized and (ii) the reader. While I don’t disagree that there is likely little harm to “the plagiarized” for verbatim repetition of another’s work where such language is highly technical and not novel information, “the reader” is misled about the significance of the writer’s work. Notwithstanding there is no “it’s okay to use verbatim/not cite the language of another to describe technical matters” carve-out to plagiarism rules – and it makes perfect sense that there would not be such a carve out, as otherwise a reader may interpret such technical statement as the novel rendering of the writer. Our rules for plagiarism exist to allow a reader to understand the novel ideas of a writer and, if followed correctly, allows a reader to evaluate the intellectual-add of the writer’s paper.
Also, specifically, your casual dismissal of the Palmquist and Voss plagiarism is baffling to me. Yes, her dataset allowed her to conclude an “increase” as opposed to a “decrease” (putting aside the 2002 concerns about Gay’s datasets and her willingness to share her underlying data). That is no saving grace. You cannot run a study, effectively ran by someone else to a different conclusion, and – once analyzing your data – take that prior paper and just change data (e.g. -.05 correlation to +0.3 correlation) and substantive conclusions (“decrease” to “increase”). That is so transparently wrong that I struggle to combat the countervailing argument. Additionally and specifically, Gay’s use of Palmquist’s and Voss’s statement “If racial turnout rates changed depending upon a precinct’s racial mix, which is one description of bias, a linear form would be unlikely in a simple scatter plot”, to me, is not a highly technical restatement of clearly established existing rules. To use such sentence, effectively verbatim (changing “description of” to “one way to think about”), is so obviously plagiarism (even if she had actually cited their paper, per the 1998 Harvard rules).
Finally on (B), I revert to the prior statement that the allegation encompass over half of Gay’s (limited) 17 published works. If there was a single instance (or maybe low single digit instances) or even it encompassed an overwhelming minority of Gay’s works, maybe I’d understand the “it’s just minor” position. But it isn’t. Gay has a very limited publishing record, of which half are alleged to contain plagiarism. This strikes me as clearly significant, not minor, and not trivial. And I vehemently disagree with your position to that effect.
Moving to (C), it is helpful to level-set here: this is the president of Harvard, and arguably the publicly-presumed pinnacle of higher-education leadership. Plagiarism allegations, even in commencement speeches (see Bob Caslen) -- notwithstanding academic papers -- are more than enough to oust academic (and even political – see, e.g., Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg) leaders. If you’re willing to wholly dismiss clear plagiarism in Gay’s acknowledgments(!!) section of academic, published, writing, you certainly must rank that as more wrong than copying three sentences given in a commencement speech. And I personally would hold the president of the University of South Carolina (US News nationally ranked #124) to a lower standard than Harvard (US News nationally ranked #3), particularly given Harvard’s global and political brand. I don’t think it is, generally, unreasonable to weigh the seriousness of various plagiarism instances, however it is clear that precedent has set the bar for university presidents significantly higher than Gay’s performance.
I believe at one point on stream you made a remark “Would I care if my doctor did this?” and that is absolutely the wrong way to think about this. This isn’t your doctor, this isn’t commercial industry, this isn’t even journalism/blogging (where you also made a comment that you essentially copied language from articles). Plagiarism is the cardinal sin of academia – where your academic and novel contributions are your barometer of significance. It’s okay if you don’t see why the system exists this way – but it would be helpful to at least acknowledge that it is an unforgivable sin in academia, where it is far less relevant to your doctor’s statements. And I think it is even fair if, given ultimate power, you would create a different system and/or rules for academics based on your viewpoints – but that is not the system we live in, and far less serious plagiarism has been taken far more seriously in other contexts for other university presidents.
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On to (2), “Of what weight should Ackman/Rufo’s efforts matter?”. I don’t think I need to spend serious time here, however your writing gave it more than lip-service. Factual wrongdoing does not need to be contextualized by the identities of the individuals presenting the facts. Facts should be evaluated on their merits alone. I find it difficult to distill bringing Ackman and Rufo into the discussion into anything other than ad hominem attacks (e.g. “billionaire” or “right-wing”).
Yes, Ackman seems highly motivated to shake up Harvard (perhaps driven, in-part, by his preexisting frustrations about Harvard’s handling of his donation of Coupang stock back in 2017 as detailed by the WSJ back in December). Rufo is a culture war warrior – who I can’t help but feel has a symbiotic relationship now with Gay, who gets to point to Rufo as the “racist” enemy, while Rufo gets to point to Gay as an elitist leftist fraud he has “scalped”.
If there was no “there-there”, perhaps the motivations of the accusers would matter to explain why this received so much attention. And maybe that’s why you give it lip service -- because you don’t think there is a “there-there” on plagiarism. I think academics disagree – and those who read the research of academics would overwhelmingly disagree.