Harvard president Claudine Gay facing new plagiarism accusations

Harvard University President Claudine Gay, the embattled leader of America's oldest university, will update her 1997 doctoral dissertation as she faces new plagiarism accusations and the news media and conservative activists scrutinize the academic's published works.

A subcommittee of the Harvard Corporation, which oversees the university, found that Gay used "duplicative language without proper attribution" in the writing of her 1997 dissertation, according to a summary of the findings of the review that was shared with POLITICO by a Harvard spokesperson. The university said that Gay, who earned her doctorate from Harvard in political science, would submit three corrections to her dissertation in response.

The new corrections follow a review by CNN that found that the university leader had lifted language from other scholars and writers in essays she published as a graduate student pursuing her PhD at Harvard and in other articles published during her time as a professor there.

They also follow the conclusion of a review by independent experts that Gay herself requested in the wake of an Oct. 24 New York Post inquiry that first raised allegations of plagiarism. That review found that Gay's actions violated Harvard's policies on citations and called them "regrettable." Yet the experts found that her actions did not rise to the level of "research misconduct" as the incidences were not "intentional or reckless."

Gay, the first woman of color to lead the storied university, has come under broader scrutiny, particularly from conservative activists, as Israel’s war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas has exacerbated tensions on campus. Her testimony about free speech rights on campus at a congressional hearing earlier this month was widely pilloried as overly legalistic and apologetic for pro-Palestinian rhetoric deemed by some as antisemitic.

On Wednesday, the House Education and Workforce Committee announced it would examine the plagiarism allegations against Gay as part of their broader investigation into Harvard.

The university is standing by Gay. In a statement last week, the Harvard Corporation stated that in “this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay.”