Harvard president’s resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism

AP ^ | January 3, 2024 | COLLIN BINKLEY AND MORIAH BALINGIT

[Fzob]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The downfall of Harvard’s president has elevated the threat of unearthing plagiarism, a cardinal sin in academia, as a possible new weapon in conservative attacks on higher education.

Claudine Gay’s resignation Tuesday followed weeks of mounting accusations that she lifted language from other scholars in her doctoral dissertation and journal articles. The allegations surfaced amid backlash over her congressional testimony about antisemitism on campus.

The plagiarism allegations came not from her academic peers but her political foes, led by conservatives who sought to oust Gay and put her career under intense scrutiny in hopes of finding a fatal flaw. Her detractors charged that Gay — who has a Ph.D. in government, was a professor at Harvard and Stanford and headed Harvard’s largest division before being promoted — got the top job in large part because she is a Black woman.

[Mashood]

The American citizen has been so numbed by violent black criminality that plagiarism and fraud doesn’t seem too bad.

[hanamizu]

When I was in College- It was clearly understood that plagiarism would get you a zero on the paper or failed the class.

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Expulsion was also on the table when I was in college—mid 60s.

[Chicory]

Excellent point!

[dfwgator]

As if only conservatives care about this?

[lastchance]

I present you with a most agreeable opinion by eugyppius.

https://www.eugyppius.com/p/after-claudine-gays-resignation-associated

[Titus-Maximus]

If you complain about my theft of your work, then that means you are a racist.

[norwaypinesavage]

"The plagiarism tool becomes dangerous effective, when it “falls into the hands of those who argue prove that academia in general is a cesspool of incompetence and bad actors.”

The AP needed a bit of editing there.