Harvard discloses broader review of plagiarism accusations against former president was recommended

Harvard released a memo Friday that details how the school investigated plagiarism allegations against its former President Claudine Gay, including that a recommendation was made for a broader review of the accusations.

In response to the House Education Committee investigation into Harvard, the school sent in documents including an eight-page memo that outlines how it handled the numerous allegations and corrections that were made to Gay’s work after a New York Post reporter presented the accusations to the university in October.  

After the allegations were made, the Harvard Corp., the school’s governing body, unanimously voted that an independent review should be conducted into the situation, according to the memo.

Three top political scientists were recruited to investigate the claims and in their final review to the board said “there was ‘no doubt’ that the articles ‘are both sophisticated and original,’” according to the memo. The three deemed other allegations “trivial” and related to “sentence fragments.” 

However, the independent review counsel did find “nine of the 25 allegations presented by the Post as allegations ‘of principal concern,’ which ‘paraphrased or reproduced the language of others without quotation marks and without sufficient and clear crediting of sources,’” according to the memo.  

“Based on its assessment of the Post’s allegations, the Independent Panel recommended that the Subcommittee conduct a broader review of all of then-President Gay’s work. This completed the Independent Panel’s role,” per the memo. 

Once the independent review was completed, the situation was taken over by the Harvard Corp. subcommittee that was formed to look into the allegations.  

“The Subcommittee concluded that, although many of the allegations were meritless, there were instances that did not adhere to the College Guide. The Subcommittee determined that two articles required corrections,” the memo said.  

Despite finding that corrections were needed, the subcommittee also determined that Gay was not “reckless nor intentional and, therefore, did not constitute research misconduct as defined by the FAS Research Misconduct Policy.” 

Gay issued the corrections. More allegations then came out about her dissertation, which Harvard learned of through social media, and more corrections were added.  

“In light of then-President Gay’s resignation, any further allegations will be assessed and addressed as appropriate without the Corporation’s involvement,” the memo said.  

The memo was sent after the House committee said it would be investigating Harvard’s handling of the plagiarism allegations and whether they were treated the same way they would have been if they concerned another faculty member or student.  

Gay resigned at the beginning of the year after the plagiarism allegations mounted and she experienced backlash over her congressional testimony at a hearing about campus antisemitism.  

Following her resignation, Gay defended herself in an op-ed, saying that while she made “mistakes,” this attack on her and Harvard was part of a bigger push to discredit higher education. 

“My hope is that by stepping down I will deny demagogues the opportunity to further weaponize my presidency in their campaign to undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence, truth,” she said.