Political science

Claudine Gay: Harvard citation review, 2023 to 2024

President of Harvard University

Errors without misconduct Resigned as Harvard president on 2 January 2024 and returned to the Harvard faculty, after Harvard said the citation problems were not research misconduct.^1,2

Papers

Paper	Action	Date	Reason stated
Two scholarly articles, from 2001 and 2017 according to the House committee letter (not named in the sources read) Not named, 2001 and 2017^1,2	Corrected	December 2023	Corrections for instances of inadequate citation identified by a Harvard review, according to CNN and AP.
Doctoral dissertation Harvard University (PhD dissertation), 1997^1,2	Corrected	December 2023	Harvard said she would update the dissertation to correct two examples of duplicative language without appropriate attribution, plus one missing citation or quotation mark already corrected.

Investigations

Harvard Corporation (independent review of published work, then a review of the dissertation), December 2023AP reported the Corporation's review found a few instances of inadequate citation but no evidence of research misconduct, and days later two additional examples of duplicative language without appropriate attribution. A Harvard spokesperson told CNN her inadequate citations, while regrettable, did not constitute research misconduct.^1,2
US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, 20 December 2023Widened an existing inquiry to include the plagiarism allegations and requested documents from Harvard, according to CNN.²

Response

She said she stands by the integrity of her scholarship (CNN), and in her resignation letter said resigning was in the best interests of Harvard (AP).^1,2

Sources

Associated Press (via Bangor Daily News), Harvard president Claudine Gay resigns amid plagiarism claims, backlash from antisemitism testimony (2 January 2024)
CNN (via ABC17 News), Harvard President Claudine Gay requests new corrections as House panel launches plagiarism probe (21 December 2023)