Evidently plagiarism and allowing anti-semitism to run rampant on campus aren’t enough to oust Harvard President Claudine Gay. Harvard’s oversight board has announced she gets to keep her job.

Harvard President Claudine Gay will remain in office with the support of the Harvard Corporation — the University’s highest governing body — following the conclusion of the board’s meeting on Monday, according to a source familiar with the decision.

The Corporation will announce the decision in a statement Tuesday morning, according to the source.

A University spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The resolution comes after the board left Gay’s fate stuck in limbo as the Corporation maintained its deafening silence for nearly a week, while Gay faced enormous backlash and calls to resign over her testimony in a congressional hearing about antisemitism on college campuses.

As Deanna wrote here, it wasn’t just her horrible testimony on Capitol Hill where anything regarding antisemitism is a matter of “context.” Nope, it’s the growing body of evidence regarding Gay’s plagiarism across multiple papers and writings of hers. 

In an exclusive interview, Dr. Carol Swain says that Harvard president Claudine Gay plagiarized her groundbreaking work, without giving proper credit. "When I look at her work, I feel like her whole research agenda, her whole career, was based on my work."https://t.co/WT8wcv6Pm8 pic.twitter.com/FS7EP60KM7

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 12, 2023

Evidently, none of this is of concern to the majority of the Harvard faculty, 700 of whom signed a petition in support of Gay and submitted it to the board prior to last night’s meeting. 

“I get the impression that many people don’t know how much support she has, as a scholar, colleague, and administrator, within the university—including from people who sometimes disagree with her,” Frank Johnson wrote in an email. “We don’t want to lose her because of a political stunt.”

Frank Johnson would not provide the language of the petition, but confirmed that it asks the Harvard Corporation “not to bend to political pressure, including pressure to remove the president.”

Oh, I see. Alumni yanking funds and calling for her ouster is just a ‘Republicans pounce’ political stunt. 

The language of this Harvard faculty letter is carefully crafted: it calls for the university to reject outside influence and does not preclude signatories favoring the ouster of President Gay provided the action is taken independently and not at the behest of Bill Ackman… pic.twitter.com/naiIDfAAzK

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) December 12, 2023

What is absolutely astounding is that some of the scholars that she plagiarized are defending her. Lifting their work and touting it as her own is just a “minor” matter. It seems her claiming others work as her own is a wee bit more than minor. 

The Free Beacon worked with nearly a dozen scholars to analyze 29 potential cases of plagiarism. Most of them said that Gay had violated a core principle of academic integrity as well as Harvard’s own anti-plagiarism policies, which state that “it’s not enough to change a few words here and there.”
Rather, scholars are expected to cite the sources of their work, including when paraphrasing, and to use quotation marks when quoting directly from others. But in at least 10 instances, Gay lifted full sentences—even entire paragraphs—with just a word or two tweaked.

Meanwhile, others accused of falsifying data, plagiarism, or other scandals at Harvard, were given a light scolding from Gay. 

According to the board, they too had realized she was a plagiarist, but are giving her time to correct her mistakes, and will let her keep her job. 

“At Harvard, we champion open discourse and academic freedom, and we are united in our strong belief that calls for violence against our students and disruptions of the classroom experience will not be tolerated.

“Harvard’s mission is advancing knowledge, research, and discovery that will help address deep societal issues and promote constructive discourse, and we are confident that President Gay will lead Harvard forward toward accomplishing this vital work,” it added.

Keep in mind, this is a woman who has fully bought into the DEI mission lock, stock, and barrel. To understand why she will keep her job, click on this tweet/X and read what she wrote in 2020 PRIOR to becoming Harvard’s President. 

The contrast between this and her response to antisemitism at Harvard is damning, as is the fact that this helped her to secure the presidency.

It shows just how deeply and thoroughly Harvard has abandoned its highest purpose: the free pursuit of truth.

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) December 10, 2023

Alumni who are supporting Gay, also wrote a letter in support.

“Over her three decades as a professor and dean, she has made it clear that she is committed to fostering a university climate that does not tolerate harassment or bullying,” the letter stated. “While the current issues at play are complex, her commitment to fighting anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and racism has never wavered.”

They wrote that with a straight face in light of the fact that there has been well-documented calls for genocide and harassment on campus against Jewish students for the last two months! 

Seriously? She’s had over TWO MONTHS of chances to lead since October 7. The board issued their statement, which essentially glosses over her plagiarism and ignores the calls for violence against Jews and Israel that have taken place on campus since October 7. 

In this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay. At Harvard, we champion open discourse and academic freedom, and we are united in our strong belief that calls for violence against our students and disruptions of the classroom experience will not be tolerated. Harvard’s mission is advancing knowledge, research, and discovery that will help address deep societal issues and promote constructive discourse, and we are confident that President Gay will lead Harvard forward toward accomplishing this vital work.

We’ve documented multiple times how Harvard is no longer an institution to aspire to. This move by the board to keep Gay shows that Harvard no longer cares about genuine scholarship, and they certainly don’t care about keeping ALL students safe on campus, just those who fit their chosen political narratives.

Feature Photo Credit: Claudine Gay at her inauguration as president of Harvard on September 29, 2023, cropped, from the Flickr account of Governor Maura Healey of Massachussetts, photo by Charlotte Hysen/Governor’s Press Office, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED)