Aviva Fried (correspondent in the United States)//Photo credits: KEVIN DIETSCH / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP
After being accused of anti-Semitism, the president of the prestigious Harvard University, Claudine Gay, is still under fire for criticism, due to potential plagiarism throughout her career.
The controversies are piling up for Claudine Gay, president of the prestigious American University Harvard. Already accused of anti-Semitism, she was unable to tell Congress whether calling for the genocide of the Jews was contrary to the policy of her establishment. From now on, Claudine Gaye is also singled out for plagiarism throughout her career.
“A problem of integrity”
Thus, calls for the resignation of Claudine Gay are increasing. THE New York Times and the Washington Post each published an editorial calling on the Harvard president to resign. Initially, she was accused of not properly attributing citations in her work. But, as the days went by, it appeared that she had undoubtedly borrowed sentences, even entire paragraphs, particularly in her doctoral thesis, even the acknowledgments of which were copied from another author.
Harvard’s board of trustees tried to downplay the facts by saying that Claudine Gay would correct her texts and that the accusations against the university’s first black president were racist. According to William Jacobson, a Harvard alumnus and now law professor at Cornell University, the accusation of racism tarnishes Harvard’s image: “It’s not a race problem as some would like to make it out. believe. It is an integrity problem when it is demonstrated that the leader of your university does not have integrity. It undermines the entire university.”
For the university, it is difficult to sanction student authors of plagiarism if the president herself benefits from privileges. For many people, Claudine Gay’s resignation alone would no longer be enough to restore the school’s image. They are now calling for in-depth reform of Harvard.