Harvard lawyers said plagiarism allegations against the university's president were 'demonstrably false' before an investigation into her work had even begun, it has emerged – as academics within Harvard said Claudine Gay's actions were 'abhorrent' .
Tom Clare, founder of the Virginia-based law firm Clare Locke – which specializes in “defending clients against high-profile reputational attacks in the print, broadcast and online media” – responded to questions about Gay's work in late October.
Gay, who became president of Harvard on July 1, has faced intense criticism and condemnation since the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel for her failure to immediately condemn students who justified Hamas's actions.
Fuel was added to the fire on December 5, when she testified before Congress about anti-Semitism on campus, and questioned whether calling for the genocide of Jews was hate speech.
Gay has found her academic record under investigation, and on December 10, conservative activist Christopher Rufo published allegations in his newsletter that she had plagiarized parts of her work.
On Friday it emerged that Harvard had been asked by The New York Post on October 24 regarding allegations of plagiarism.
Claudine Gay, pictured at a menorah lighting on December 13, was cleared of plagiarism by the university on December 12. But the accusations refuse to go away
Tom Clare, a lawyer representing Harvard, said in late October that the allegations against Gay were “demonstrably false” — despite the investigation not being launched until November.
Clare responded to the newspaper on behalf of the university on October 27, saying the plagiarism claims were “demonstrably false.”
He told The New York Post that they would sue for “enormous” damages.
The paper told Harvard that they had found plagiarism in three different works: they pointed out 27 possible examples of plagiarism in two peer-reviewed journals and an academic journal.
The work appeared as early as 1993, when Gay graduated, and not until 2017, when she was dean of the faculty of social sciences.
Clare wrote: 'The extracts provided do not support a finding of plagiarism – and the conclusion she puts forward rests on a fatally flawed understanding of what 'plagiarism' is and is not in scholarly work conducted in academic journals and institutions.'
Clare made no mention of an investigation initiated by Harvard, and its existence was not made public until December 12, when the university said it had received permission and would make two changes to her published work.
The university said the investigation started on November 2 – meaning Clare insisted she was innocent before an investigation had even started.
Harvard is shocked by students who blame Israel for the October 7 attack; pro-Palestinian rallies; and the pursuit of Jewish students on campus
Protesters are seen at Harvard on October 14. Gay was criticized for being slow to condemn students' justifications for Hamas terror attacks
Harvard President Claudine Gay during the December 5 congressional hearing on anti-Semitism on campus
Clare also quoted in her letter the response of two of the people she was accused of plagiarizing, saying they had shrugged off the accusations.
D. Stephen Voss, who now teaches at the University of Kentucky, told The Crimson that while Gay “technically committed plagiarism,” it is “from minor to insignificant.”
He said, “This doesn't look sneaky at all. It seems like maybe she just had no idea what we normally tell students to do and not to do.”
Harvard professor Lawrence Lobo, also among those allegedly plagiarized by Gay, similarly told the Boston Globe, “I find myself unconcerned by these claims since our work is explicitly acknowledged.”
But in recent weeks, a third person whose work Gay is accused of copying — Dr. Carol Swain — said she is outraged by the revelation.
On Thursday, Swain, a political scientist who previously taught at Vanderbilt University, called on Harvard to fire Gay.
Swain claims that Gay omitted parts of her 1993 book – Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress – and her 1997 article entitled Women and Blacks in Congress: 1870-1996.
She wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “Harvard cannot condemn Ms. Gay because she is the product of an elite system that holds high-ethnic minorities to a lower standard. This harms academia as a whole and it demeans Americans of all races who had to work for everything they earned.”
Dr. Carol Swain claims Harvard won't convict President Claudine Gay because she is “the product of an elite system that holds high-born minorities to a lower standard.” On Thursday she called for Gay's resignation
Swain, a right-wing political commentator, addressed other authors allegedly plagiarized by Gay but failed to convict her, reducing the missed sources to a few innocuous, inadequate quotes.
'Mrs. Gay had no problem piggybacking on people whose work she used without proper attribution. Many of those whose work she stole are not as outraged as I am. They are elites who have benefited from a system that protects their own elite,” said the political scientist.
And two current Harvard academics said Friday they were uncomfortable with Gay's actions.
They noted that students should not be allowed to get away with the behavior Gay exhibited.
“There are few things more disgusting than a top executive being given a license to do something for which he punishes subordinates,” said Richard Parker, a professor at Harvard Law School.
He told The Boston Sphere that the handling of the allegations was 'irregular' and 'opaque', and that this was contrary to a typical plagiarism investigation.
“The contrast shows contempt for our students and faculty and for Harvard itself,” he said.
Others said Gay received special treatment.
“I think there is a clear double standard,” said Shabbat Kestenbaum, a Harvard graduate student who has strongly criticized Gay's response to the Oct. 7 attack.
He told the Globe that students are sometimes suspended for plagiarism, he said.
But in Gay's case, he said, “not only is there no discipline, but on the contrary the board has unanimously expressed its approval and confidence in her.”
Brendan Case, associate director of research at Harvard's Human Flourishing Program, which studies human well-being, said The globe that the allegations against Gay appeared “very serious.”
Case said he was embarrassed by the response from the Harvard Corporation – which runs the university – because it appears to be undermining academic integrity.
“Just speaking from my own corner of Harvard, there's no doubt in my mind about that [that] If we discovered that pattern of academic dishonesty in any of our researchers, including myself, they would be fired immediately,” Case said.
“It seems inevitable to me that many people inside and outside Harvard will conclude that they don't take this kind of thing seriously.”
Trucks have appeared outside Harvard's campus calling for Gay to be fired
Gay was accused of copying two paragraphs from the work of then-Harvard scholars D. Stephen Voss and Bradley Palmquist. One paragraph is almost identical, except for a few words
However, Gay did not use quotation marks or quotations in the text – Voss and Palmquist are not cited anywhere in her dissertation
Some academics at the university have supported Gay, pointing out that Harvard has long been under attack from conservative critics who view the university as too liberal.
“As scientists, we must do our utmost to adhere to the practices that we very clearly tell our students to follow,” says Edward Hall, director of undergraduate studies in Harvard's philosophy department.
But, he told The Boston Globe, the “noise.” . . from political actors outside our walls makes it more difficult to have the right conversation about it.'
He told the newspaper that he questioned the motives of politicians who attack Gay.
“There is very little reason to believe that prominent people in the Republican Party are raising this issue right now because they care deeply about the quality of science at Harvard and other universities,” he said.