Former political science professor Dr. Carol Swain, whose work Harvard University President Dr. Claudine Gay allegedly plagiarized, is calling for her firing.
Swain wants Harvard to hire a new, qualified president who will “steer the university back towards sanity.”
Gay has been accused of lifting passages from multiple authors without attribution, including two instances from Swain’s seminal 1994 book, “Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress” for her 1997 Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard, according to The Harvard Crimson.
Incidentally, Swain’s book won multiple awards in the field including from the American Political Science Association and was originally published by Harvard University Press.
Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress had this reception in the world (1993, 1995, 2006). Gay’s work should have acknowledged and engaged the work. “Winner of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award from the American Political Science… pic.twitter.com/2hARUlcje3
— Dr. Carol M. Swain (@carolmswain) December 16, 2023
In a Thursday post on X, Swain wrote, “I have some free unsolicited advice for Harvard University.” Her suggestions included, “Stop listening to the apologists for plagiarism,” and “Fire Claudine Gay posthaste. She can be relieved of duties until the terms are negotiated.”
Swain continued advising, “Stop listening to the racist mob of whites and blacks who cry racism while being among the worst offenders,” then, “Hire the best man or woman who can steer the university back towards sanity. Appeasing the Marxist identity politics mob should not be a consideration.”
The former Vanderbilt University professor went on to suggest the hire could “be a middle to older age white Jewish man who believes in classical liberalism.”
Is Harvard protecting Claudine Gay?
The recent controversy regarding Gay stems from her unwillingness, while testifying before Congress earlier this month, to label students’ speech calling for the genocide of Jews to be in violation of Harvard’s rules of conduct.
I have some free unsolicited advice for Harvard University.
1. Stop listening to the apologists for plagiarism.
2. Fire Claudine Gay posthaste. She can be relieved of duties until the terms are negotiated.
3. Stop listening to the racist mob of whites and blacks who cry racism… pic.twitter.com/TggW9QzTkB— Dr. Carol M. Swain (@carolmswain) December 21, 2023
GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Harvard alumna, asked Gay, “At Harvard does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Yes or no.”
“It can be depending on the context,” the university president answered.
“Do you understand that your testimony is dehumanizing [Jewish students]? Do you understand that dehumanization is part of anti-Semitism?” Stefanik followed up.
Gay reiterated that if a student called for the genocide of Jews, it could be a violation of Harvard’s rules.
“Anti-Semite rhetoric, if it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment intimidation, that is actionable conduct, and we do take action,” she said, but again testified that calling for genocide in-and-of itself may be permissible at Harvard, depending on the context.
“It does not depend on the context… and this is why you should resign,” Stefanik responded.
Elise Stefanik obliterates president Claudine Gay Harvard University & Liz Magill of Penn State University.
They refused to say that calling for the genocide of the Jews is against school policy, and they said that it “depends on the context”
Both should resign immediately! pic.twitter.com/iODkpubvJu
— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) December 22, 2023
Swain told Real America’s Voice on Thursday that Gay should be fired based on her instances of alleged plagiarism alone.
“From all indications, she is a serial plagiarist, and she should be held accountable. She should not be the president of any college or university,” Swain said.
“If the president of Harvard University can get away with plagiarism, I think it will encourage a lot of people who otherwise wouldn’t do so to engage in the same type of behavior,” she added.
When asked specifically about the passages Gay took from her book “Black Faces, Black Interests,” Swain said her biggest problem with it was not acknowledging the former professor’s whole research agenda.
“She’s not letting anyone know that she’s building on research that someone else opened up that area. So normally you would cite the leading scholar and would affirm or challenge or expand that research,” Swain said. “I was the lead authority, and she was not acknowledging that she was following in my footsteps.”
What Gay did was take some of Swain’s work and not give her credit for it.
Swain argued that Gay robbing her and others out of citations hurts them.
“In academia, your stature depends on how many times people cite your work,” she said. “But I don’t just blame her. I blame her committee members, reviewers of her articles, people in the political science profession that decided to start canceling me before we even knew of the cancel culture because I was becoming increasingly conservative.”
“I was becoming a Christian. I became a Republican,” Swain continued. “And so what they did is they allowed people not to cite my work.”
Harvard’s dissertation committees are made up of academics who were charged with reviewing and challenging students’ work, which is to include original research in the field, according to the university’s website.
Presumably, the same basic practice was in place in the 1990s when Gay wrote her dissertation.
Gay should be removed as Harvard’s president both for violations of basic of academic standards and her refusal to take a strong stand to protect Jewish students on campus.
