The House Education Committee expands its investigation into Harvard President Claudine Gay to include allegations that she plagiarized academic papers.
Final Foxx Harvard Plagiarism Letter by Williams Perdomo on Scribd
"Harvard is not just any university"
The information was confirmed by the chair of the committee, Republican Virginia Foxx, who sent a four-page letter to Penny Pritzker, director of the university's Board of Trustees, requesting a response by December 29 to a series of questions about the situation. Additionally, Foxx requests all documents and communications related to the initial allegations of plagiarism.
"The House Committee on Education and the Workforce has begun a review of Harvard University’s handling of credible allegations of plagiarism by President Claudine Gay over a period of 24 years. An allegation of plagiarism by a top school official at any university would be reason for concern, but Harvard is not just any university. It styles itself as one of the top educational institutions in the country", Foxx said in the letter.
Likewise, the president of the committee demands a list of disciplinary actions taken against Harvard faculty or students based on violations of academic integrity, research misconduct, improper citations, or other forms of plagiarism, between January 1, 2019 and now.
"If a university is willing to look the other way and not hold faculty accountable for engaging in academically dishonest behavior, it cheapens its mission and the value of its education. Students must be evaluated fairly, under known standards – and have a right to see that faculty are, too", Foxx says in the letter sent to Pritzker.
"The president requested four corrections"
One complaint, obtained by the Free Beacon , includes more than 40 accusations of plagiarism against the Harvard president. "The full list of examples spans seven of Gay's publications—two more than previously reported—which comprise almost half of her scholarly output," the Free Beacon detailed.
Meanwhile, the university assured in a statement that they have reviewed the accusations of plagiarism against Gay and noted that "While the analysis found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications".
This investigation expands further into the investigation of Gay and Harvard addressing antisemitism on the university's campus. The Education Committee held a hearing, featuring Gay and the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about anti-Jewish comments and activities on university grounds.
The comments of the three presidents during the appearance generated controversy because they said that considering the calls to action for an attack on Jews as harassment would depend on the context.
