Harvard president allegedly plagiarized her doctoral thesis, was hired for diversity reasons

Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo and American Conservative editor Chris Brunet exclusively obtained documentation showing several examples of Gay allegedly taking paragraphs or concepts from the work of other academics for her dissertation, leaving the reader with the impression that their work was original to her. Harvard policy on plagiarism states that one cannot merely “change a few words here and there and leave the rest” but must “completely restate the ideas in the passage in your own words.”

The documentation found Gay lifted “an entire paragraph nearly verbatim” from a paper written by scholars Lawrence Bobo and Franklin Gilliam with a few “trivial synonym substitutions,” according to an article from Rufo and Brunet in the City Journal. Harvard students who plagiarize material face disciplinary action which could include withdrawal from the university.