Harvard student pundit Maya Bodnick authored an indignant column in the Harvard Crimson arguing that “A Witch Hunt Is Targeting Black Harvard Faculty.” Bodnick, the niece of high-powered tech exec Sheryl Sandberg (not to suggest that her connection to a wealthy former CEO of Meta had any bearing on her admission, mind you), gives us this argument: because conservatives (like Christopher Rufo) have uncovered genuine plagiarism on the part of prominent black members of Harvard’s administration and faculty, including deposed Harvard president Claudine Gay, it is clear that the objective is to target black academics and scholars, and thus is racist.

To begin with, it would be nice if someone being educated at Harvard understood what “witch hunt” means. After all, it’s a historical reference, in fact, it’s a historical reference to an infamous event that occurred not all that far from Harvard. You see, there were never any witches, because they don’t exist. Various members of the Salem community in colonial days exploited the fear of witches to get innocent people tried, ruined, and executed. “Witch hunt” means a contrived and organized effort to falsely accuse and harm an innocent person for other, sinister motives. However, plagiarism, unlike witchcraft, is real, and the Harvard plagiarists the investigations have uncovered deserved the consequences of their dishonest scholarship. This last part is apparently beyond the ability of Bodnick to comprehend.

Reviewing the evidence that revealed that Gay, whose entire career has been focused on championing diversity efforts, Sherri A. Charleston, Harvard’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Harvard Extension School administrator Shirley R. Greene and Harvard assistant professor of Sociology Christina J. Cross all achieved their prominence in academia with the assistance of unethical scholarship, Bodnick writes,

Conservatives have emphasized that all four of the accused are Black women. “Let’s not ignore the pattern,” Rufo wrote on X. “This is the fourth black female CRT/DEI scholar to be accused of plagiarism at Harvard.” Others have pounced on these allegations, arguing that they provide evidence these women were diversity hires in the first place. U.S. Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) took to X and argued that Gay “got her job not through merit, but because she checked a box.”

Pounced! But they aren’t allegations. They were all examples of unacceptable plagiarism. Vance’s statement, though a bit harsh, is literally true. Claudine Gay lacked the traditional credentials that earned previous scholars the Harvard presidency. She is a black woman who made her reputation advocating pro-minority bias. She was the literal face of DEI at Harvard.

Then, somehow, it is a defense to plagiarism, in Bodnick’s fuzzy reasoning, that that “since 2000, many professors from different backgrounds (including many white faculty members) who study a variety of fields have been accused of plagiarism.” How does that make Rufo and the conservative critics wrong or racist, or plagiarism by black academics more acceptable? Furthermore, in the case of Gay, she’s not just another faculty member. She was president of a university that styles itself as the most prestigious in the nation. If there were two presidents of Harvard sharing the job, a black female and a white male, and only Gay’s scholarly output was checked for misconduct, then Bodnick would have a case. But the only president Harvard had got to her lofty position by, as another Crimson contributor pointed out, engaging in a level of academic fraud that would get a student expelled. How is that evidence of a “witch hunt”? How is that the fault of Rufo and his conservative allies? How is it “racist”?

Surely they teach students at Harvard that “Everybody does it” is a rationalization, not an excuse. Don’t they? Don’t they?

Finally, after calling investigations into whether Harvard professors and administrator are plagiarists, the aspiring opinion journalist says, “Harvard should conduct a broad plagiarism review of the entire faculty.” So plagiarism reviews are not witch hunts, then, unless they uncover real plagiarism on the part of black scholars.

Rufo, who is certainly a conservative muckraker but he is no easy mark in a debate (and he knows the moon isn’t made of gas), deftly defenestrated Bodnick’s position, not that it was difficult. He wrote in part,

One of the ironies to this accusation is that I have explicitly asked my sources to review the work of white and Asian scholars and, thus far, the verified plagiarism cases have been predominantly from black women. This is not dispositive, nor is it a systematic study, but it is not implausible that CRT/DEI fields would have higher rates of plagiarism, particularly in specified demographics, given that these fields are heavily populated by affirmative action policies and have lower scholarly standards that [sic] more rigorous disciplines.

I agree… that Harvard should conduct a systematic review of all scholars, then break down the results by field, race, and sex, so we can have a comprehensive picture of any disparities. This is a great suggestion from The Crimson.

Petard, meet Hoist. Rufo believes that the ‘color and gender trumps merit’ ideology in the DEI movement pushes beneficiaries of the movement to fudge the merit part. And if the audit indicates that black women at Harvard have significantly higher rates of plagiarism, supporting that theory? How will the race card fare then?

Meanwhile, around the same time as Bodnick was writing her column, Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino, famed for her research on organizational behavior and particularly dishonesty, was accused of multiple counts of plagiarism after an examination of her work by Science Magazine. Science found that Gino took text without attribution from dozens of academic sources. Researcher Erinn L. Acland, a psychologist at the University of Montrea,l found that a book chapter co-authored by Gino, titled “Dishonesty Explained: What Leads Moral People to Act Immorally,” borrowed extensively from 10 other works, including academic papers and student theses.

Talk about petards!

The Science investigation uncovered more instances of significant textual”borrowing” in two of her books in which Gino’s entries resembled “texts from previous news reports, blogs, and academic literature.”

But, you see, this investigation wasn’t a witch hunt, because the investigation wasn’t instigated by conservatives, and because this professor is Italian. Do I have that right? I’m so confused!

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Pointer: One of you. Thanks. I lost the email.