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‘It’s unacceptable when you have students at Harvard who would be expelled for plagiarism to allow a faculty member who has nearly 50 examples of plagiarism in their very slim body of academic work,’ GOP rep says

Claudine Gay may have stepped down as Harvard University’s president on Tuesday amid plagiarism and antisemitism scandals, but the embattled scholar appears poised to land on her feet.

Gay will keep her job as professor and “resume her faculty position at Harvard,” according to a statement Tuesday from the Harvard Corporation, which is in charge of the school.

“Prior to being named president just six months ago, Gay earned $879,079 as a faculty of arts and sciences dean in 2021 and $824,068 in 2020, according to records published by the university,” the New York Post reported.

“Her new position was not specified Tuesday, but she is expected to receive a salary comparable to what she previously received — if not higher.”

Many left-leaning black scholars have raced to Gay’s defense, arguing she was forced to resign due to racism.

“Racist mobs won’t stop until they topple all Black people from positions of power and influence who are not reinforcing the structure of racism,” Boston University Professor Ibram X. Kendi posted on X on Tuesday.

Gay announced Tuesday she would resign as president after only five months on the job, blaming in part “racial animus” for her decision in a statement that ignored controversies that engulfed her presidency over the last three months.

According to the latest count, the total number of plagiarism allegations have now engulfed almost half of Gay’s published works, with nearly 50 examples, Aaron Sibarium of the Washington Free Beacon reported Monday.

Gay also fumbled the institution’s response to a spike in campus antisemitism in the wake of the terrorist attacks Oct. 7 against Israeli civilians and expressed apathy when asked about the genocide of Jews in congressional testimony last month.

Many rich donors have since yanked their funding and early applications to Harvard have tanked in the wake of the scandals. Several watchdogs are now calling for Harvard Corporation members to resign in the wake of the fiasco, blaming their poor leadership for Harvard’s downfall.

The New York Post reported Wednesday:

House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) — a Harvard graduate who emerged as Gay’s chief critic — ripped the decision to allow her to remain on the faculty.

Stefanik argued that Gay’s plagiarism charges are an indelible stain that mars the school’s legitimacy.

“She’s not fit to be a faculty member,” Stefanik told The Post.

“It’s unacceptable when you have students at Harvard who would be expelled for plagiarism to allow a faculty member who has nearly 50 examples of plagiarism in their very slim body of academic work. It’s absurd and everybody knows it. Harvard knows it too.”

Stefanik, who led the congressional questioning that brought Gay under the spotlight for antisemitism, said in a news release Wednesday that she will continue to keep the heat on Harvard.

“Ms. Stefanik says the House Education and the Workforce Committee’s probe into Harvard will ‘uncover the absolute negligence and failures of the Harvard Corporation,’ the university’s highest governing body. ‘It’s going to expose an institutional rot of antisemitism in Harvard as an institution, its failure to protect Jewish students, and its shirking of academic integrity,’” the release stated.

MORE: Harvard Corporation members should resign in wake of Gay fiasco, watchdogs say

IMAGE: Harvard Gazette 

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