The House Education and Workforce Committee gave Harvard University more time to respond to allegations that its president repeatedly plagiarized her academic writings.
A committee spokesperson said the university was given more time because of the holidays and that it was still working with Harvard to produce the documents, according to CNN. The university was initially expected to turn over a series of documents related to its own investigation of the plagiarism allegations made against Harvard President Claudine Gay by Friday.
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The documents were requested by committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who asked for documents related to the university’s “public response to media inquiries” about the plagiarism allegations, along with “any and all communications” between Harvard and its accreditor regarding the university’s performance on academic honesty.
Foxx also requested information on “disciplinary actions” taken against Harvard faculty or students since 2019 for academic integrity violations, including inadequate citation, of which Gay has been accused.
The request stems from a 37-page complaint detailing more than 40 possible instances of plagiarism committed by the university’s embattled president earlier this month. The complaint built on previous allegations of plagiarism, which came as Gay faced immense pressure to step down after she refused to say whether it was a violation of Harvard’s conduct policies to call for the genocide of Jews.
The Harvard Corporation said it stood by Gay and revealed it had conducted an independent review of Gay’s scholarship. The review “revealed a few instances of inadequate citation,” according to the corporation, but Gay has since requested corrections to her papers.
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The university’s response to the plagiarism allegations has prompted questions about what kind of scrutiny a student in a similar situation would have faced.
“Students who, for whatever reason, submit work either not their own or without clear attribution to its sources will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including requirement to withdraw from the College,” the university’s plagiarism policy reads. “Students who have been found responsible for any violation of these standards will not be permitted to submit course evaluation of the course in which the infraction occurred.”
