OPINION:
“First and foremost, we thank President Gay for her deep and unwavering commitment to Harvard and to the pursuit of academic excellence.”
Did Harvard really thank Claudine Gay for building her entire career on deceit and theft? Yes, they did, right underneath their motto, “Veritas,” meaning “truth.”
Shame on Harvard Corp. for issuing a woefully inadequate statement lamenting the resignation of Ms. Gay as its 30th president while commending her “deep and unwavering commitment to Harvard and to the pursuit of academic excellence.”
Numerous instances of plagiarism by Ms. Gay prove that neither of those qualities is true. Her commitments and pursuits served her alone, clearly absent any noble or virtuous intention and therefore undeserving of any admiration or thanks.
Harvard administrators avoid addressing the truth behind the downfall of their prized diversity, equity and inclusion president, who allowed them all to bask for a few months in the glow of the virtue signaling behind her appointment.
No mention of the plagiarism scandal. No mention of Harvard going to extraordinary lengths to protect Ms. Gay by abandoning traditional research standards of academic integrity, such as redefining plagiarism as harmless incidences of “duplicate language.” Never mind that nearly 50 instances of duplicative language have been identified in her published works.
Absolving her of guilt, Harvard assures us that Ms. Gay has “acknowledged missteps” and she has “taken responsibility for them.”
I must ask: When and where did she acknowledge the missteps of serial plagiarism, and how does retroactively revising selected portions of some of her published research make what she did acceptable? Should everyone caught in a plagiarism scandal get a do-over, or is that reserved for selected minorities who fit a certain profile? Many Americans are probably wondering about this.
Ms. Gay and Harvard have chosen to characterize the attacks on her record as having been motivated in part by racial animus. Ms. Gay has never publicly acknowledged the seriousness of the nearly documented cases of “duplicative language.” Instead, she used her resignation letter as an opportunity to push the narrative that the criticisms of her mediocre record were motivated by racial animus, which implies that they were unfounded.
Many of the people whose language she pilfered when asked said it was fine with them. Their passivity calls into question their judgment and commitment to academic integrity.
In return for her wrongs, Ms. Gay gets a soft landing as a faculty member and a generous salary. She writes, “As I now return to the faculty and to the scholarship and teaching that are the lifeblood of what we do, I pledge to continue working alongside you to build the community we all deserve.”
What exactly will she be teaching the students in her classes? How will she ever be able to hold any of them accountable for sloppy work or outright “duplicative” language?
If Harvard University gets away with redefining plagiarism and lowering academic standards in the name of protecting DEI, there will be no hope for higher education in America, and their irresponsible model of moral relativity will taint every institution in America.
• Carol M. Swain is a senior fellow at the Institute for Faith and Culture and the co-author, with Mike Towle, of “The Adversity of Diversity.”
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