[I am especially grateful for this story because it gives me a perfect oportunity to post my favorite John Wayne clip, from “McClintock!”]
One of the scholars that Harvard President Claudine Gay ripped off without proper attribution has issued a full-throated condemnation in the Wall Street Journal. Carol Swain, author, researcher and a retired Vanderbilt professor considered one of the pioneers in the field of race in politics and government doesn’t get into the high weeds of Gay’s pathetic performance before Congress on the matter of her campus’s harassment of Jewish students, focusing instead on the other reason the Harvard diversity hire is demonstrably unqualified for her prestigious position. Swain writes in part,
I write as one of the scholars whose work Ms. Gay plagiarized. She failed to credit me for sections from my 1993 book, “Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress” and an article I published in 1997, “Women and Blacks in Congress: 1870-1996.”
…When one follows in the footsteps of a more senior scholar, one is expected to acknowledge the latter’s contribution to the field and how one’s own research and ideas refute, affirm or expand knowledge in the area. Ms. Gay ignored the substantive importance of my research, which she should have acknowledged and engaged….When scholars aren’t cited adequately or their work is ignored, it harms them because academic stature is determined by how often other researchers cite your work. Ms. Gay had no problem riding on the coattails of people whose work she used without proper attribution. Many of those whose work she pilfered aren’t as incensed as I am. They are elites who have benefited from a system that protects its own.
Swain’s not through…
Even aside from the documented instances of plagiarism, Ms. Gay’s work wouldn’t normally have earned tenure in the Ivy League. Tenure at a top-tier institution normally demands ground-breaking originality; her work displays none. In a world where the privilege of diversity is king, Ms. Gay was able to parlay mediocre research into tenure and administrative advancement at what was once considered a world-class university.
Finally, the eminent African-American scholar concludes,
Harvard can’t condemn Ms. Gay because she is the product of an elite system that holds minorities of high pedigree to a lower standard. This harms academia as a whole, and it demeans Americans, of all races, who had to work for everything they earned.
The Harvard alums I have discussed this fiasco with seem to agree that the plan is for Gay to hang around, avoiding further embarrassments (if possible) and after a suitable period of relative calm, step down from her office citing personal reasons or sunspots or something. Anything to allow Harvard leadership to hold a minority hire of high pedigree to a lower standard.
Ethics Alarms 
Just as important, I think, is that Harvard can’t be seen to be backing down from or validating the words of a conservative female legislator…
Ms. Carol Swain’s solid wallop was as strong as McClintock’s for sure. But the mud on Ms. Gay’s face and reputation is clearly of her own doing.
Thanks for the video clip, Jack! It’s time to treat myself to a long overdue watching of this terrific John Wayne flick one evening before New Year’s Eve.
“Even aside from the documented instances of plagiarism, Ms. Gay’s work wouldn’t normally have earned tenure in the Ivy League. Tenure at a top-tier institution normally demands ground-breaking originality; her work displays none.”
I’m not a subject matter expert, I’ll get that out of the way right at the top, but I’ve talked to a couple, and “ground-breaking originality” seems like subjective puffery. Harvard has 600 tenured professors. That said… Gay has published 11 papers in her career. Which is 11 more than I have, but I’m not pretending that I’m in the running to be the president of an Ivy League school. My understanding, and if someone who was in the know could weight in, I’d appreciate it, but my understanding is that 11 papers wouldn’t normally be enough to be considered for Harvard tenure, plagiarism notwithstanding.
The other thing that’s kind of painfully obvious is the juxtaposition between the credentials of Gay’s predecessor, Lawrence Bacow, and her own: Before being the President of Harvard, she was a Dean for five years, and before that a professor for 8 years. Bacow was a professor at MIT for 24 years, where he also served as chair and chancellor, before becoming the president of Tufts for a decade, then becoming the president of Harvard. He has written 105 papers.
I’m not saying Gay is unqualified. I’m not in a position to know what makes someone qualified. I will say that there isn’t a doubt in my mind that she wasn’t the most qualified candidate.
Also, in looking up some of that information, I got my Gays mixed up and searched for “Roxanne Gay”, well…. How foolish of me. Except they’re cousins. Small world, eh?
They are?
Wikipedia says so.
Yesterday, Wiki informed me that the Three Stooges wanted to have a black comic replace Shemp when the latter died, but the studio wouldn’t let them. fascinating! The black comic, Mantan Moreland, was very good. What might have been!
What Swain is talking about is that Gay went from Harvard graduate student to Stanford Professor to high-level administrator. To do this, you normally need some groundbreaking work. Her work seems to have been a rehash of previous work by others. If you didn’t do groundbreaking work in graduate school, you are expected to do further research or work at a ‘lesser’ school for awhile and do good work. So, there are 2 tracks. She was given the track for superstars.
(1) Track 1. Superstars. Must do something noteworthy. Two examples are a person who made the first mimic of the enzyme that cleaves nitrogen gas to form ammonia, as the nitrogenase enzyme does. This was an important study for an important enzyme. He got an assistant professor appointment at MIT. Another person figured out how to improve teflon production by using supercritical carbon dioxide as the solvent. He had $4 million/year in grants by the time he was 28. His work also resulted in the process currently used to decaffeinate coffee and tea. Despite this, he was only able to get a job at a good state school. This wasn’t good enough for the superstar track to the Ivies. Claudine Gays rehashed, plagiarized dissertation needed to be better than his work to justify her academic position.
(2) Track 2. Normal track. The person mentioned who improved teflon (and other polymer) production and decaffeination of tea and coffee was offered Ivy League jobs after he received tenure at his state school job. This is the track someone like Claudine Gay would normally have to follow. She would need to take a job at some lesser state school (Kansas State, Western Kentucky) and produce some impressive results. A handful of papers full of plagiarized ideas wouldn’t cut it to get an Assistant Professor job at Stanford.
Honestly, her background and work seemed more suited to her getting a job at a school such as Oberlin, rather than a research position at a highly prestigious school.
Remember, Carolyn Swain originated a lot of these ideas and was a pioneer in the field. She, however, didn’t get these positions like Gay did. Gay went to expensive prep schools, then Stanford, then Harvard. As Swain mentions, Gay seems to have been rapidly promoted by “…an elite system that holds minorities of high pedigree to a lower standard”. Swain was working at McDonald’s. She went to Jr. College, then got a bachelor’s, a Master’s, and finally a Ph.D. from state schools. She worked her way up from poverty. Was she not promoted to the positions Gay was because she wasn’t of ‘high pedigree’?