Right Wing Hit Squad take out Harvard President

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On Tuesday afternoon, Claudine Gay resigned from her post as president of Harvard University, making her six-month tenure the shortest in university history. In the aftermath of her departure from the position, many argued that the aggressive nature of the campaign against her was motivated not by questions about her academic integrity or about her response to campus controversy, but by her race.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... -president

Her resignation on the heels of UPenn president Liz Magill’s set dangerous precedent in the academy for political witch hunts. The project isn’t to thwart hate but to foment it thru vicious takedowns.

The attacks against Gay and the open admission by some rightwing pundits and activists to execute similar plans across higher education could have larger implications. Roopika Risam, an associate professor at Dartmouth, wrote: “While no one owes Harvard pity, we’d be remiss to not see this as an attack on higher ed, like ones in states like Florida and South Dakota (and and and…), laying the groundwork for ongoing dismantling higher ed – especially public higher ed, where states hold the purse strings.”

Risam may have been referencing the efforts of people like Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who led the campaign against Gay. Last month, Rufo posted on X: “We launched the Claudine Gay plagiarism story from the Right. The next step is to smuggle it into the media apparatus of the Left, legitimizing the narrative to center-left actors who have the power to topple her. Then squeeze.”

Interesting development.

Leading the hit was Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. Turns out his main reason for targeting former president Claudine Gay was over plagiarism. Turns out there were was 1-2 paragraphs Gay forgot to put apostrophes. Hardly a crime.

However as it turns out his wife Neri Oxman plagiarised a huge portion of her PhD dissertation to MIT

Ackman is now turning around and accusing the media of victimising his family
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfol ... published/

Despite the blatent hypocrisy, Ackman plans to attack the president of his wife's former alma mata at MIT. Sally Kornbluth. Ackman is already responsible for the resignation of Gay from Harvard and UPenn President Liz Magill

Similar situation to framed and guilty.

A lot of her attackers do want to impose a right wing censorship regime.

She not only was tone deaf in using legalistic language in a political hearing but she was not qualified for the job.

She has written 11 peer reviewed papers some of which had a degree of plagiarizing. 11 peer reviewed papers proves she is way smarter then me and way under-qualified to be the president of arguably the most prestigious university in the country.

Bottom line is it that it is hard to imagine a person who would be a better gift to the “anti woke” movement both the legitimate and disingenuous kind. The President of a university rated worst for “free speech” apparently defending a policy that says arguing for genocide is not harassment, you can’t make this stuff up.

^^^

The irony is three women presidents weren't on the radar for plagiarism, but rather because they were deemed "woke" (there is that word again). Claudine Gay drew attention to herself for her pro-Palestinian stance/leanings. In addition she was the first African American to be elected president of Harvard (so of course she will be also drawing the attention of the anti-woke mob). I've read her accolades and (despite the bad press) makes her a worthy appointment. Her resignation had nothing to do with Harvard dismissing her. She was likely fearful for her life (as was Magill at UPenn). Harvard have retained her as member of faculty despite calls from republicans for her to be sacked.

The level of plagiarism Claudine Gay was accused of amounted to the use of quotation marks, however it does seem like an elementary mistake. Somebody took a lot of trouble to re-read her dissertation to find this (I can tell you reading a 300-400 page dissertation to find plagiarism is a painful exercise).

They probably used a plagiarism checker app

Doesn't that require an electronic copy?

I am not an expert by no means but in 2024 are not peer-reviewed articles available via online journals?

I thought you need a word document? the online journals are in Pdf format

When I finished grad school, I was required to submit both printed and electronic copies of my dissertation. The pdf is available on the internet via their library website. Older dissertations were being scanned to make electronic copies for the library at the time. I have no idea how far back that the school was doing this.

My university did check for plagiarism in published works, including dissertations and thesis essays. I know of two foreign grad students who did not get their doctorate degrees because they plagiarized on their dissertations. Because of their incidents, all of the other graduate students in our program had to attend a mandatory workshop on preventing plagiarism. It was a boring three days long program directed at mainly foreign students.

To be fair, not that I'm a supporter of Claudine Gray, online plagiarism checkers were not available when she submitted her dissertation back in 1998. The first such checkers weren't available until the early 21st century.

This was my thought too? yes this is standard practice for libraries where the dissertation is deposited. This is why it's weird the current witch hunt the reappraisal of the dissertations (especially from Harvard) showed up plagiarism?

Oh yes! thanks, back then the software wasn't available.