Dr. Carol M. Swain has responded to alleged documentation obtained by writer and political activist Christopher Rufo accusing Harvard University President Claudine Gay of plagiarizing “multiple sections” of her Ph.D. thesis from 1997.
EXCLUSIVE: @RealChrisBrunet and I have obtained documentation demonstrating that Harvard President Claudine Gay plagiarized multiple sections of her Ph.D. thesis, violating Harvard's policies on academic integrity.
This is a bombshell. 🧵
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 10, 2023
Rufo, through a thread posted on X Sunday afternoon, displayed photos of Gay’s 1997 thesis next to the material Rufo asserts she used without attribution.
Rufo accuses Gay of plagiarizing her thesis by pulling material written by scholar Swain as well as material written by Lawrence Bobo and Franklin Gilliam, Richard Shingles, Susan Howell, and Deborah Fagan.
Rufo said Gay’s plagiarism is a violation of Harvard’s policy and called on her to resign.
“Gay’s use of Swain’s material is a straightforward violation of the university’s rules, which state that one “must give credit to the author of the source material, either by placing the source material in quotation marks and providing a clear citation, or by paraphrasing the source material and providing a clear citation”— neither of which Gay followed,” Rufo wrote on X.
“I earned a master’s degree from Harvard’s night school — not nearly as prestigious as the graduate school — but, if I had committed these kinds of violations, I would have been expelled. As an alumnus, I am calling on Claudine Gay to immediately resign from her position,” Rufo added.
Harvard’s policy on Plagiarism and Collaboration reads as follows:
It is expected that all homework assignments, projects, lab reports, papers, theses, and examinations and any other work submitted for academic credit will be the student’s own.
Students who, for whatever reason, submit work either not their own or without clear attribution to its sources will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including requirement to withdraw from the College. Students who have been found responsible for any violation of these standards will not be permitted to submit course evaluation of the course in which the infraction occurred.
Swain responded to Rufo’s thread on Gay’s thesis, writing on X, “I just learned of @realchrisrufo analysis of #ClaudineGay’s work and the allegations of plagiarism. I have not read the articles or books in question. However, two things come to mind: imitation is said to be the highest form of flattery and secondly Dr. Gay’s committee, reviewers, and colleagues should have caught these transgressions. I will issue a statement after I have more information. Right now it seem like she is a victim of the “Adversity of Diversity.””
I just learned of @realchrisrufo analysis of #ClaudineGay’s work and the allegations of plagiarism. I have not read the articles or books in question. However, two things come to mind: imitation is said to be the highest form of flattery and secondly Dr. Gay’s committee,… pic.twitter.com/CBkQdLx8e9
— Dr. Carol M. Swain (@carolmswain) December 11, 2023
When asked by one X user if she can “sue,” Swain responded, “I will not sue. I don’t blame her. I blame the system that elevated her and never checked the work.
Swain added in another post that Gay “would not be the first one” to use her work and sell it as their own.
“The practice among some academics white and black has been to use my work and never cite me,” Swain said.
A respected scholar who has served as a tenured professor at Princeton and Vanderbilt, Swain is the author of The Adversity of Diversity, a critique of DEI policies.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
