Isn’t the anti-Semitism and hypocrisy scandal enough for Claudine Gay? Harvard’s board has gotten very quiet over the past week after its president’s congressional testimony outraged practically everyone. Both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill now demand an investigation into Harvard and the other Poison Ivies, and into their discriminatory and arbitrary conduct when it comes to speech and the safety of students on their campuses.

But that’s not the only investigation that will embarrass Harvard’s board of trustees. Christopher Rufo and Christopher Brunet did their own investigation into Gay’s academic record, and found evidence that Gay plagiarized her doctoral thesis:

EXCLUSIVE: @RealChrisBrunet and I have obtained documentation demonstrating that Harvard President Claudine Gay plagiarized multiple sections of her Ph.D. thesis, violating Harvard's policies on academic integrity.

This is a bombshell. 🧵

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 10, 2023

Rufo and Brunet quote the relevant passage of Harvard policy on paraphrasing in school papers, emphasis mine:

“When you paraphrase, your task is to distill the source’s ideas in your own words. It’s not enough to change a few words here and there and leave the rest; instead, you must completely restate the ideas in the passage in your own words. If your own language is too close to the original, then you are plagiarizing, even if you do provide a citation.”

Did Gay follow this policy? Not according to the comparisons made by Rufo and Brunet:

Gay repeats this violation of Harvard's policy throughout the document, again using work from Bobo and Gilliam, as well as passages from Richard Shingles, Susan Howell, and Deborah Fagan, which she reproduces nearly verbatim, without quotation marks. pic.twitter.com/K75YPeZwky

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 10, 2023

The Bobo-Gilliam source material isn’t the only reference that Gay allegedly hijacked in her 1997 thesis either. Gay copied passages “nearly verbatim” without any attribution from author Carol Swain’s Black Faces, Black Interests, which had been published just two years earlier:

Later in the paper, Gay also uses identical language to Swain, without adding quotation marks, as required. "Since the 1950s the reelection rate for House members has rarely dipped below 90 percent," reads Swain’s book, which is the same, excepting an added comma, to the language… pic.twitter.com/p6aM8776Hh

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 10, 2023

There is a large amount of irony in this connection to Swain. Hot Air readers may recall that Vanderbilt students attempted to drum Swain out of the university for daring to suggest that the Left may have been wrong about — wait for it — radical Islam. No, I’m not kidding:

At Vanderbilt, many minority students have in recent days renewed a push for the university to take action against Carol Swain (right), a tenured professor of political science and law, over a column she wrote in January after the terrorist attacks in Paris against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

In the January column, Swain asked, “What would it take to make us admit we were wrong about Islam? What horrendous attack would finally convince us that Islam is not like other religions in the United States, that it poses an absolute danger to us and our children unless it is monitored better than it has been under the Obama administration?”

Swain retired shortly afterward anyway, but not before returning rhetorical fire on the intolerant progressives. I wrote about that briefly in a column for The Fiscal Times:

That attitude has damaged education itself on American campuses, Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain warned students in her final lecture. “You don’t belong on a college campus if you’re afraid of ideas,” the retiring educator pointed out in her speech, “Political Correctness and the Decline of American Universities.”

That’s not the end of the Swain-related irony, either. Swain has become an outspoken critic of DEI, especially of its “evolution into a billion-dollar industry,” as Swain writes in her recent book The Adversity of Diversity. (See how easy it is to cite outside material?) Swain herself commented on the irony last night:

I just learned of @realchrisrufo analysis of #ClaudineGay’s work and the allegations of plagiarism. I have not read the articles or books in question. However, two things come to mind: imitation is said to be the highest form of flattery and secondly Dr. Gay’s committee, reviewers, and colleagues should have caught these alleged transgressions. I will issue a statement after I have more information. Right now it seem like she is a victim of the “Adversity of Diversity.”

Back to Gay, who didn’t stop her material-lifting at Swain either. She copied large amounts of material from her own dissertation adviser, Gary King, although she did manages to include King’s book in an appendix:

These are flagrant violations of Harvard's plagiarism policy, which states that students who commit plagiarism will suffer "disciplinary action, up to and including requirement to withdraw from the College." The same standard should apply to the university president. pic.twitter.com/Q2UviANylT

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 10, 2023

Any one of these violations would get an ordinary student an F over violations of Harvard’s rules for composition of theses, even if just a mistake. The aggregate of these would likely have raised serious questions about Gay’s academic integrity and called into question her entire career as a student at Harvard.

Rufo and Brunet argue that the pattern certainly requires an investigation now, especially in light of Gay’s obvious incompetence as Harvard’s president:

What should the consequences be for President Gay, given these violations? Some critics might object to any punishment, arguing that her dissertation is decades old, or that these instances of plagiarism appear to be highly technical, or even trivial. But the dissertation is the cornerstone of an academic career, and universities impose demanding standards of academic integrity, with severe consequences for violators. Harvard, in particular, has a strict policy on these matters. If a current Harvard student were to commit violations of the same nature as Gay’s, it would lead to “disciplinary action, up to and including requirement to withdraw from the College.” The same standard should apply to the university president.

In light of this troubling evidence, we call on Harvard’s Board of Overseers to conduct a full investigation into Claudine Gay’s academic integrity. The precedent for such violations has already been set at other institutions: the president of the University of South Carolina, for example, resigned for plagiarizing remarks he made in a commencement speech; and the president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges resigned due to plagiarism that he committed in part of his dissertation. Gay’s case should be treated with equal seriousness. If she has violated the code of academic conduct, she must resign—or get voted out by the board.

One could look at this another way. Gay’s apparent plagiarism, or at least her incompetence at following basic rules of attribution, could be considered as evidence for her unfitness for the job at hand. If Gay couldn’t be bothered to follow those rules and do her own work on her own doctoral dissertation, then she’s clearly not competent for the executive role in any organization, especially in an academic institution.

Either way, this raises serious questions about Harvard as well. How did Gay skate by with these issues in her doctoral dissertation at the time? How rigorous is the academic environment at Harvard, anyway? Bear in mind that these dissertations are supposedly reviewed by experts in their fields at Harvard. Gay wasn’t lifting material from decades-old work in mouldering libraries, after all; Swain’s work had just been published two years earlier, and the Bobo-Gilliam material less than a decade prior to the dissertation. Did Gay skate by because of institutional incompetence, or did she get a pass for other reasons?

And will she get a pass this time too, and will it be for the same reasons? Swain certainly seems to think so:

Would you like to know more about the system that produced #ClaudineGay? Everything you need to know is in my latest book, “The Adversity of Diversity.” Order copies for your favorite college or university president and the Board of Trustees. @realchrisrufo The Adversity of…

— Dr. Carol M. Swain (@carolmswain) December 11, 2023

Update: Billionaire alum and donor Bill Ackman looks past the plagiarism issue to get to the heart of the problem — Gay’s utter failure last week and in her entire tenure. Ackman blames Gay for boosting anti-Semitism across the country and the world, and demands her termination immediately:

In her short tenure as President, Claudine Gay has done more damage to the reputation of Harvard University than any individual in our nearly 500-year history.

Because of her failure to condemn the most vile and barbaric terrorism the world has ever seen, for supporting rather than condemning 34 Harvard-branded student organizations who hold Israel “entirely responsible” for Hamas’ barbaric acts, for failing to enforce Harvard’s own rules on student conduct, and for her other failures of leadership, President Gay catalyzed an explosion of antisemitism and hate on campus that is unprecedented in Harvard’s history.

In light of Harvard’s leadership position, President Gay’s mishandling of October 7th and its aftermath on campus have led to the metastasis of antisemitism to other universities and institutions around the world. …

Free speech deteriorated materially under Gay’s deanship and presidency as evaluated by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Harvard’s free speech ranking has deteriorated each year over the last four academic years to a ranking of 0.00 or last out of 254 universities this past year. According to FIRE, Harvard is the only university with an “abysmal” speech climate. In my letter to the board of December 3rd, I quoted Harvard faculty I interviewed on the lack of free speech at Harvard. I encourage you to read what they had to say.

Gay has presided over discriminatory hiring practices at Harvard. The faculty have been told in no uncertain terms that candidates that do not meet DEI criteria will not be considered for certain faculty positions.

As Dean, Gay showed no respect for basic American legal principles when she fired Harvard Law School Professor Ronald Sullivan as residential dean for taking on the legal defense of Harvey Weinstein. President Gay should hope that someday when she needs counsel, she will be able to obtain quality representation for herself.

She’ll need counsel soon enough, if Harvard decides to revert to Veritas rather than Veritas Mea.

Update and correction: I misspelled Chris Brunet‘s name throughout my post as “Burnet.” I have corrected it, thanks to VIP member Horologium Redux, and offer my sincere apologies to Mr. Brunet for the error.