Before the “woke” virus took over American higher education, plagiarism was long viewed as a cardinal sin. For decades, faculty, administrators, and undergraduates alike have ruined their careers by committing plagiarism.
Harvard’s ex-President Claudine Gay has become the latest example — except this time, the mainstream media rushed to her defense. Gay resigned Tuesday after an investigation into serial plagiarism and after failing to extend Harvard’s hate-speech policy over calls for genocide.
The media blamed Gay’s downfall on a vast, right-wing conspiracy. They dismissed the possibility of Gay’s own mistakes coming back to haunt her.
A piece in Politico blamed “a pronounced pressure campaign led by conservatives in Congress, prominent donors and right-leaning media and activists.”
A “news analysis” piece in the New York Times said, “For many of Dr. Gay’s critics, her departure was also a proxy victory in the escalating ideological battle over American higher education.”
CNN reporter Matt Egan gave an especially confused remark.
“We should note that Claudine Gay has not been accused of stealing anyone’s ideas in any of her writings. She has been accused of sort of more like copying other people’s ideas without attribution,” Egan said.
The conservative Washington Free Beacon even compiled a list of the liberal media’s worst comments on Gay’s resignation.
Take a look —
And @CNN’s @MattEganCNN included perhaps the most head spinning word salad to explain how it wasn’t actually plagiarism. (H/t @SteveGuest ) pic.twitter.com/uUG0tZIu0G
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 3, 2024
You’ll never guess what @MSNBC’s @TheRevAl blamed it on. pic.twitter.com/3yc7Qqm5tm
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 3, 2024
Her coworker @MaraGay did the same thing in this mind melting interview. (H/t @tomselliott) pic.twitter.com/Ray1seagWv
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 3, 2024
And as @peterjhasson and others have pointed out @AP took some creative liberties with their history, too. pic.twitter.com/2Nvp28JiUD
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) January 3, 2024
The university began investigating Gay for serial plagiarism in October, well before her December appearance in Congress.
Harvard found multiple shortcomings in Gay’s academic citations, including several instances of “duplicative language.” However, the university concluded that the errors were “not considered intentional or reckless” and didn’t rise to the university’s standards for misconduct.
However, Gay continued to face allegations, with new ones as recently as Monday.
Gay herself has acknowledged some mistakes.
In a New York Times op-ed published Wednesday, Gay said her published work contained passages where “some material duplicated other scholars’ language, without proper attribution.”
Gay even requested some corrections to her published work, according to a statement by Harvard’s board.
However, Gay also stood by her original research, and she said in the op-ed that she’d never had claimed credit for others’ work.
Carol Swain, one of the scholars claiming to have been plagiarized by Gay, said in another op-ed that Gay has published too little original research to become Harvard’s president.
Among her critics, these findings are clear evidence that Gay, as the top academic at the pinnacle of U.S. higher education, is unfit to serve.
But the media won’t tell you that.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.