Harvard DEFENDS its plagiarism investigation of Claudine Gay that saw her step down as president during scandal that has plunged college into biggest crisis in its history

Harvard submitted report to Congress on its plagiarism investigation of GayIndependent panel recommended broader review of all of Gay's workWider inquiry determined that two of Gay's articles required corrections 

Harvard University has defended its investigation into the plagiarism allegations that played a role in former President Claudine Gay’s ouster.

The university on Friday submitted an eight-page report and other documents outlining its response to the saga to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

The report revealed new details of how the allegations were handled and investigated internally, after activists and media outlets began scrutinizing Gay’s academic papers on political science.

The Harvard Corporation, the school’s governing board, first brought on an independent panel to review 25 allegations of plagiarism raised by a New York Post reporter on October 24.

On the panel’s recommendation, the board then instituted a wider review of all of Gay’s academic work, leading to the determination that two of her articles required corrections.

Harvard University has released further details of its investigation into the plagiarism allegations that played a role in former President Claudine Gay’s ouster

The report says that the initial independent panel was appointed on November 3, consisting of ‘three of the country’s most prominent political scientists.’

The panel members are not named, in keeping with academic tradition for peer review, but Harvard says that are they are tenured faculty members at prominent research institutions across the country, fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and two are former presidents of the American Political Science Association.

The panel examined only the three articles mentioned in the New York Post’s initial report on the allegations.

Harvard’s report says that the panel found that there was ‘no doubt’ that the articles ‘are both sophisticated and original,’ and that there was ‘virtually no evidence of intentional claiming of findings that are not President Gay’s.’

The panel found that certain allegations were ‘trivial,’ concerned ‘commonly used language’ or ‘sentence fragments,.’

However, in nine cases, the panel found allegations ‘of principal concern,’ which ‘paraphrased or reproduced the language of others without quotation marks and without sufficient and clear crediting of sources,’ failing ‘[o]n occasion’ to ‘provide citations according to the highest established scientific practice.’

It noted further that, with respect to one allegation, ‘fragments of duplicative language and paraphrasing’ could be read as Gay claiming the findings of another researcher as her own, though it was not clear that was her intent.

The panel ultimately recommended a broader review of all of Gay’s academic work.

Harvard senior fellow Penny Pritzker led the board’s response to the scandal

That review was undertaken by a subcommittee of certain fellows of the Harvard Corporation to direct the wider review with the assistance of counsel.

They were Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar, Biddy Martin, Shirley M. Tilghman, and Theodore V. Wells, Jr.

‘The Subcommittee concluded that, although many of the allegations were meritless, there were instances that did not adhere to the College Guide,’ Harvard’s report states. ‘The Subcommittee determined that two articles required corrections.’

The Subcommittee determined that some of the allegations flagged by the panel did not merit correction, but that one study not reviewed by the panel did.

‘While it required corrections, the Subcommittee determined that then-President Gay’s conduct was not reckless nor intentional and, therefore, did not constitute research misconduct as defined by the FAS Research Misconduct Policy,’ Harvard’s report says.

Gay submitted corrections to the two articles on December 14. However, criticism over the scandal continued, and she resigned effective January 2.

The university on Friday submitted an eight-page report and other documents outlining its response to the saga to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce

Harvard on Friday separately announced task forces to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia, after struggling to manage campus response to the Israel-Gaza War.

‘Reports of antisemitic and Islamophobic acts on our campus have grown, and the sense of belonging among these groups has been undermined,’ Alan Garber, Harvard´s interim president, said in a letter to the school community.

‘We need to understand why and how that is happening – and what more we might do to prevent it.’

The separate task forces follow the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay , who faced a backlash over her congressional testimony on antisemitism as well as plagiarism accusations.

Some Jewish students filed a lawsuit against Harvard this month, accusing the school of becoming ‘a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment.’

Arab and Muslim students around the country have also said they feel they’re being punished for their political views on the war.