Harvard trying to 'redefine what is plagiarism' amid accusations against Claudine Gay, says Carol Swain

Political scientist Carol Swain has spoken out against embattled Harvard University president Claudine Gay, who has been accused of plagiarism in multiple papers including her dissertation, calling for her to step down. 

Swain, a retired Vanderbilt University professor, told Fox News, "Claudine Gay needs to step down. Obviously, the Harvard Corporation did not have the courage to fire its first Black president, someone who should never have been elevated in the first place."

Swain is among around 20 authors whose work was paraphrased or quoted in four papers without proper attribution. The school’s highest governing body has stood by Gay despite finding "instances of inadequate citation" in her academic writings after a probe. They found it didn’t violate standards for "research misconduct."

"Given the fact that they did not fire her, the right thing for her to do is to step down," Swain said. 

"I hope that the pressure doesn't relent until she does that because she's harming academia, she's harming Black people. She's harming everyone who had to work and earn their way in academia," Swain said. "And it doesn't matter whether or not you are a professor or you are a journalist or in a field where you had to get a college degree. It was expected that you would write your papers and that you wouldn't engage in plagiarism."

Swain said that the school is attempting to "redefine what plagiarism is" to protect the school’s head, adding, "My blood pressure is rising today because of Harvard University's decision that what she did doesn't constitute plagiarism, and it doesn't rise to the level of her removal."

"My message to Harvard University is you don't get to redefine what is plagiarism. Most of us know what plagiarism is."

"What they have done is very demeaning to every person, not just racial and ethnic minorities, but anyone who has worked hard in school, who's written papers, who's tried to follow the guidelines," Swain added. "It is an insult to intelligence what Harvard University has done."

Speaking with Christopher Rufo for the City Journal, Swain said regarding the plagiarism accusations, "What is bothering me is not just that there’s passages she didn’t put in quotation marks. When I look at her work, I feel like her whole research agenda, her whole career, was based on my work. It bothers me because I know that my work was a big deal in the early 1990s. And I started falling out of favor in 1995 when I started criticizing race-based affirmative action."

Swain said that "there seems to be a pattern" with Gay’s plagiarism, adding "At best, it was sloppiness, but it would be considered plagiarism if you lift sections of other people’s work and you pass it off as your own."

"A white male would probably already be gone," she told Rufo.

Harvard Corporation members wrote in a statement on Tuesday, "We today reaffirm our support for President Gay's continued leadership of Harvard University. Our extensive deliberations affirm our confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing."

The statement comes after Gay and other university heads appeared before Congress to answer on how these campuses were addressing antisemitism, with Gay and others refusing to condemn calls for genocide against Jewish students on their campuses.

Members acknowledged that Harvard's initial statement "should have been an immediate, direct, and unequivocal condemnation" of Hamas' latest round of violence, noting that "so many people have suffered tremendous damage and pain" as a result of the Iranian-backed Palestinian terrorist organization's actions.

"Calls for genocide are despicable and contrary to fundamental human values," the statement continued. "President Gay has apologized for how she handled her congressional testimony and has committed to redoubling the University's fight against antisemitism."