Harvard reportedly covered up a high-level investigation into whether the Ivy League university’s embattled president, Claudine Gay, had previously engaged in plagiarism. Moreover, the school also “threatened” the New York Post with “an expensive law firm” in response to the media outlet’s probe into the matter.
The university spent weeks failing to acknowledge that Gay had been under investigation, remaining quiet as the Harvard president issued a disastrous testimony on the topic of antisemitism last week at a congressional hearing, according to a report by New York Post.
Harvard Prez Claudine Gay holds her face in her hands (Boston Globe /Getty)
Then on Tuesday, after fresh allegations were raised, Harvard admitted that it had previously investigated Gay with regards to plagiarism, and that the probe began started in late October, after the school “became aware” of the allegations against its president.
“But the statement did not tell the full story — including how Harvard called in bulldog attorneys to protect Gay,” the New York Post reported.
The outlet explained that its reporters had contacted Harvard on October 24 — after being tipped off by material that had been sent to them anonymously — to ask for comment on “more than two dozen instances” in which Gay’s work appeared to be plagiarized.
Harvard’s senior executive director of media relations and communications, Jonathan Swain, who was part of the Biden-Harris transition team and a one-time Hillary Clinton aide, responded to the Post by asking for more time to review Gay’s work. He reportedly said he would “get back in touch over the next couple of days,” but did not.
Two days later, the Post received a 15-page letter from Thomas Clare, a high-powered Virginia-based attorney with the firm Clare-Locke, who said he was the defamation counsel for Harvard University and Gay.
As Breitbart News reported, Harvard disclosed the investigation via a statement from the university’s governing body, Harvard Corporation, which said the school unanimously stands behind Gay, despite being embattled in multiple scandals.
In its statement, the Ivy League school revealed that it had previously launched a probe into Gay’s academic work and whether it had been plagiarized, adding that Harvard had cleared the university president of violating the its “standards for research misconduct.”
Harvard said that Gay would instead request four corrections in two publications to add citations and quotation marks that were “omitted.”
The statement came one day after conservative activist and CRT expert Christopher Rufo raised concerns about Gay having possibly plagiarized her Ph.D. dissertation.
Harvard has still not said what works its president is trying to have corrected, and whether Gay’s dissertation will be corrected.
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