4 ms·

Harvard President Resigns After Mounting Plagiarism Accusations

24 points by gnicholas 3y ago

gnicholas 3y ago
> But, after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual. This makes it clear that it was a forced resignation, IMO. Anyone stepping down of her own accord would not say "after consultation with".
fsflover 3y ago
Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38844980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38844980
- EA-3167 3y ago
  I'd argue that the NYT article is much more useful than the CNN one, if there needs to be a merge I'd rather see the CNN comments merged here.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    Yeah it was interesting to see that the NYT put the reason in the headline, which neither CNN nor the Boston Globe did. I wonder what their source was for the cause, since the resignation letter itself did not specifically say.
ilamont 3y ago
It was only a matter of time. If credible plagiarism evidence or other serious ethical lapses come to light, it is really hard for high-level administrators to keep their jobs. We saw that at Stanford (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34847734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34847734) and with Joi Ito at the MIT Media Lab. The ridiculous contortions the universities will go through to avoid the inevitable (“a few instances of inadequate citation” in Gay's case) won't stop the train once it's started. Although Harvard's board said it learned about Gay's plagiarism in October, there had been online accusations that predated her appointment, when she was still the dean of faculty. It amazes me the selection committee either A) failed to do due diligence or B) knew about it and went ahead anyway.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  True, although for a minute there it looked like the Corporation was acknowledging the plagiarism ("duplicative language", I think they called it?) and standing by here. Apparently those allegations had been out in the open in her field for quite some time, even before she was selected for the position. Given how hard it is even to get tenure at a top university, it's surprising that they selected someone with these skeletons lurking.
  - ilamont 3y ago
    The other due diligence issue besides the plagiarism rumors was the fact that her research output was negligible compared to other Harvard presidents such as Drew Gilpin Faust and Larry Summers. Her H-Index was 10 or 11 before Google removed it. By comparison Summers is 138. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yX255OoAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yX255OoAAAAJ&hl=en
    - gnicholas 3y ago
      But they had to know this when they chose her though, right? It's possible they didn't know about the plagiarism/accusations if they didn't look hard enough. There's no way they didn't know she wasn't a particularly prolific scholar, since she has literally never written a monograph, and has penned roughly a dozen articles.
      - ilamont 3y ago
        They must have. However, I wonder how many experienced academics were on the search committee, or if it's mostly rich donors. That could explain a lot. My take: I think Gay was one of several up and coming internal candidates which Harvard keeps in the wings for bigger things. She had capably proved herself as FAS Dean, much like Faust oversaw the Radcliffe Institute. The search committee thought Gay would be ready to lead the University as an experienced administrator, and ignored or overlooked the academic red flags.

24 points by gnicholas 3y ago

> But, after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual. This makes it clear that it was a forced resignation, IMO. Anyone stepping down of her own accord would not say "after consultation with".

fsflover 3y ago

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38844980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38844980

EA-3167 3y ago
I'd argue that the NYT article is much more useful than the CNN one, if there needs to be a merge I'd rather see the CNN comments merged here.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Yeah it was interesting to see that the NYT put the reason in the headline, which neither CNN nor the Boston Globe did. I wonder what their source was for the cause, since the resignation letter itself did not specifically say.

ilamont 3y ago

It was only a matter of time. If credible plagiarism evidence or other serious ethical lapses come to light, it is really hard for high-level administrators to keep their jobs. We saw that at Stanford (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34847734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34847734) and with Joi Ito at the MIT Media Lab. The ridiculous contortions the universities will go through to avoid the inevitable (“a few instances of inadequate citation” in Gay's case) won't stop the train once it's started. Although Harvard's board said it learned about Gay's plagiarism in October, there had been online accusations that predated her appointment, when she was still the dean of faculty. It amazes me the selection committee either A) failed to do due diligence or B) knew about it and went ahead anyway.

gnicholas 3y ago
True, although for a minute there it looked like the Corporation was acknowledging the plagiarism ("duplicative language", I think they called it?) and standing by here. Apparently those allegations had been out in the open in her field for quite some time, even before she was selected for the position. Given how hard it is even to get tenure at a top university, it's surprising that they selected someone with these skeletons lurking.
- ilamont 3y ago
  The other due diligence issue besides the plagiarism rumors was the fact that her research output was negligible compared to other Harvard presidents such as Drew Gilpin Faust and Larry Summers. Her H-Index was 10 or 11 before Google removed it. By comparison Summers is 138. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yX255OoAAAAJ&hl=en https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yX255OoAAAAJ&hl=en
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    But they had to know this when they chose her though, right? It's possible they didn't know about the plagiarism/accusations if they didn't look hard enough. There's no way they didn't know she wasn't a particularly prolific scholar, since she has literally never written a monograph, and has penned roughly a dozen articles.
    - ilamont 3y ago
      They must have. However, I wonder how many experienced academics were on the search committee, or if it's mostly rich donors. That could explain a lot. My take: I think Gay was one of several up and coming internal candidates which Harvard keeps in the wings for bigger things. She had capably proved herself as FAS Dean, much like Faust oversaw the Radcliffe Institute. The search committee thought Gay would be ready to lead the University as an experienced administrator, and ignored or overlooked the academic red flags.