Claudine Gay is a pseudointellectual who specialises in being a Diverse Black Female Academic. She first served as a Diverse Black Female Academic at Stanford University, before leaving to become a Diverse Black Female Academic at Harvard University. In 2018, Harvard decided it would be even more Diverse of them to make Gay the Diverse Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and in 2023 they thought they could achieve a new pinnacle of Diversity by making her their first Diverse Black Female President. Because Gay’s importance derives entirely from being a Diverse Black Female Academic, she is an underqualified mediocrity, and she has never published anything interesting. In fact, relative to the average tenured Harvard professor, she has never published much of anything at all.
Dec 15, 2023·edited Dec 15, 2023Liked by eugyppius
Great post! I agree!
When I wrote about Prof. Gay, I also mentioned my personal peeve that people plagiarize my entire Substack posts, pretend they wrote them, and give me zero credit.
Like, they could mention my name in some tiny footnote...
'Bad old whitey' is the cause of every real and imagined slight or problem, with certain people who have been conditioned to see themselves as victims.
You need to back up a step or two Rosie. We have accusations of plagiarism because we have academic standards. In all cases, it is the standards that are racists, because people like Claudine Gay cannot meet them. BTW, there is a great meme on Revolver News that refers to her as ClauDEIne Gay.
in the 1600 and 1700s music was plagiarized big time. We would probably not have known Vivaldi, had it not been that JS Bach plagiarized some of his music. Times change, tho. I don't know how it was found out, that the great Bach used pieces of Vivaldi and arranged them, may be he did mention it.
This is misleading. Bach did not plagiarize Vivaldi. He made transcriptions by hand, arranging the concertos for organ; the main purpose was to understand Vivaldi's distinctive and innovative style from the inside (not just as a listener).
The test is this: When were Bach's Vivaldi transcriptions published? That is, when did the transcriptions enter the marketplace? The answer is: not until the mid-19th century, so more a century after Bach's death.
There were various further hand copies circulated, and the composer of the original was not always indicated on these. The son, W.F. Bach, for example, made a hand copy several decades after his father's death, indicating that he had made the copy from one of his father's manuscripts; the original composer of the concerto, Vivaldi, isn't mentioned. Whether W.F. was unaware of Vivaldi's authorship, or whether he thought it was too obvious to mention, we don't know, but this is clearly not J.S. Bach's responsibility, and in any case, there was still no publication and no commercial gain. The first publications of the transcriptions, in the mid-19th century, lacked the attribution to Vivaldi simply because that composer had fallen into obscurity by that stage. Italian music scholars in the late 19th century started to explore Vivaldi's music, and the correct attributions were gradually added in later editions.
In Claudine Gray's case, it is true that academic papers don't bring the author direct remuneration, but their publication is essential for promotion and the attainment of higher pay grades, so there is no point of comparison between her plagiarism and Bach's transcriptions.
I just kinda wanted to say that 'using other people's stuff' to build on has been quite come throughout the ages. I think that is what civilisation is about : build further on the blocks we have. I did not mean it that Bach did not have the brilliance he certainly had
Plagiarism is a moral failing, and liable to professional or institutional disciplinary action; if the monetary gain is high enough, it may lead to legal action.
In the particular case you chose, there was no plagiarism under any workable definition: Bach was not claiming authorship, nor in any case did he enjoy any material gain. Let's say you take up oil painting, and after many years of hard work and great progress, you gain permission at an art museum to copy some of their paintings for your personal use. You hang them up at home, and give a few away as presents to friends. Then someone accuses you of being an art fraudster. Which are you more likely to say "Yes, you've caught me out, I'm an art fraudster." or "Your accusation is both malicious and ridiculous"?
There is also no point in redefining "plagiarism" so that it takes in the whole of civilisational progress. It's a kind of positivism to think that a concept must either have razor-sharp boundaries or else it just blends in with the cosmos. Academic plagiarism runs from the obvious, such as lifting whole paragraphs verbatim from an unacknowledged original, through alterations that make detection harder, such as word variation, or translation, to more difficult areas like taking the structure of an argument. Beyond that, there are subtleties such as Author 1 citing an obscure primary-source document in a footnote without crediting Author 2, whose secondary source writing, based on months of arduous archival research was the direct source of Author 1's knowledge of the document.
It is within the normal exercise of human intelligence in developed societies to debate over moral and juridical problems that are vexed. We don't simply throw up our hands and say that every composer, painter, researcher or inventor would need to start from scratch and return to the paleolithic to avoid being guilty of some kind of all-encompassing notion of plagiarism - if all acts in these domains are plagiarism, then the word plagiarism drops out of use, and another word would have to be found for the same concept.
Elon Musk has been accused of being a corporate plagiarist so to speak. By appropriating ideas he didn't create or merely riding the coat tails of other people's talent.
and lots by misunderstanding. I just read a book how Louis Pasteur misunderstood the ideas of Bechamp, changed them a bit and ran off with the bootie. And it gets more and more clear that Bechamp meant different and had it right, and Pasteur wrong
The sacred MLK plagiarized most of his doctoral thesis, which came out in the '90s...Abundant excuses flowed nonstop from the usual suspects...Prof. Larry Tribe at Harvard Law, an alleged Constitutional scholar, published a book in which whole sections were plagiarized from a BU Professor...His excuse was that he didn't write the book, his assistant did.No penalty...It's everywhere....
This will be pointedly ignored by most commenters here. "Conservatives" have made an idol of this degenerate phony communist, and I don't see them backing off that particular idol worship any time soon. The glory in it because it shows how not racist they are, which is certainly THE most important thing in the world in the present age.
The fount from which the rest of the sewage has flowed even if some of the little grasshoppers in training have never heard of the man or only vaguely.
Igor, you are correct. What you describe is everyday plagiarism, which is the stealing of other people's ideas. It is shameful to steal without attribution. Oth, you are supremely readable, so plagiarizing you is the sincerest form of flattery. But Gay cited her sources in every paragraph she is accused of plagiarizing.
I personally do not even bother. One time I contacted Infowars and they corrected their attribution. It was not exactly plagiarism, more like confusion about authorship, in that case
I suspect kids aren't taught about plagiarism any more. Or citations. But Gay should have known better....she DID know better. She just thought she would not be caught or questioned on it.
Just a note, Chris Brunet at Karlstack has been investigating the academic fraud of Claudine Gay for over a year and a half, too, including charges of fabricating data (https://www.karlstack.com/p/exclusive-leaked-report-shows-harvard). That was before she was made president of the university, no less. Gay's career is a total mess, with lots of really concerning connections to e.g. Epstein. This particular rabbit holes seems to go way, way down...
Integrity among elites is non-existent. A mere 20 years ago, the University of Notre Dame fired its head football coach a few weeks after hiring him because a journalist scoured his academic record and noticed that it was embellished. Now, the president of the most prestigious university in the world is caught stealing the efforts of others, and the Hollow Men unsheathe their swords and swing them vigorously in the Kween's defense. Of course, being head football coach at Notre Dame is a far more important position, but still...
“...most prestigious university in the world” ...hopefully not much longer. All of these woke universities need to either be completely overhauled or destroyed. They are as bad as corrupt government entities & corporations
These elites love to aggrandize each other; I believe that dope, Prince William, also put her at the head of one of his greenie initiatives. All while the jab slaughter in NZ under her tyranny is coming to light
It's because she was amply rewarded (including financially) by her globalist handlers, as she, like Macron, Turdeau, the Criminal Biden Family, etc. shamelessly pushed the Marxist/globalist Agenda 21/2030, the mRNA jab depopulation agenda, the "Great Reset," and its slogan "Build Back Better". Here's a 1-minute clip of her being a traitor to New Zealand sovereignty --
What's truly scary is that the same "equity" policies are putting unqualified fools in charge of aircraft, air traffic control and military organisations.
It will happen quietly without fanfare and she likely reap a payout to go away. Sad because of DEI gestapo, there will no repurcussions for her. We live in a sick sick culture where evil is rewarded and the innocent and truth-tellers are hunted.
It would be a grave injustice to impose her upon even elementary school students anywhere. She should not be teaching anyone anything other than how to plagiarize. She should resign and begin over by enrolling as a student at a school where rigorous thought is taught and practiced - such as Hillsdale College. She has, however, contributed something of original and unique value to academia. She has devised the irrefutable “Gay Defense” for plagiarism which hereafter can be used by any Harvard student threatened with disciplinary action for plagiarism.
This is the typically unspoken point: "Especially in light of the relaxed standards to which the Diverse are subject." Here is a related point: plagiarism is much easier to get away with on these subjects because few people read or care about the work. The purpose of the work is to generate the work--not for it to be consumed. It's a universal social science writing maximizer. Not fit for human consumption.
A lot to say about this. The Diverse generally get through graduate school via a kind of soft and technically permissible 'plagiarism' – they're constantly "workshopping" each other's papers, their advisers are perpetually helping them rewrite their terrible prose, etc. I guess people like Gay can't write any other way and end up producing work that is just a patchwork of phrases from other people's stuff. And because research on the Diverse is generally a mutually promoting hugbox, the risk of getting called out by the people you plagiarise is minimal.
Dec 15, 2023·edited Dec 15, 2023Liked by eugyppius
Our current ruling class are the kids who got caught cheating in high-school because they wrote the name of the person they were cheating from in the space they were supposed to put their name.
And what you're seeing now is what it looks like when the classroom has nobody left they can cheat from.
Our current ruling class own central banks. The people you are referring to are their sock puppets. Our rulers literally couldn't care if it was an actual puppet. The very fact events like this happen with no consequences is just evidence it is in decline and will fail. It is just a matter of time.
"Our current ruling class are the kids who got caught cheating in high-school because they wrote the name of the person they were cheating from in the space they were supposed to put their name."
Similarly, this occurs in Law School. In one example I personally know about, the diverse student was failing to keep up and failing classes. He was personally tutored by a diversity hire on the law school faculty. When his abysmal grades and class standing warranted dismissal, they allowed him to take a reduced course load the next semester that eliminated the "mandatory" Constitutional Law Class. He did somehow manage to graduate with faculty intervention, but I always wondered if he passed the Bar. In my opinion, this type of Law School acceptance and graduation of an unprepared and, dare I say it, incapable student, is why we're seeing a breakdown in our legal, judicial, and legislative systems. Diversity as a singlular metric leads to unprepared faculty who perpetuate the selection of unprepared students who are undeservedly credentialed. As this philosophy has gained traction in all areas of society, it replicates and insinuates itself into all facets of life, much like a pandemic. I have to wonder if there is any possibility of reinstating merit, honesty, and scholarly honor, in the academic world given the extent of the indoctrination, laws, precedents, and agendas of those who have the power to change things. Sadly, the Harvard retention of Gay leads to a negative conclusion.
Everyone kept saying there never was meritocracy. People did well because they were placed in the system well. There was/is an argument that might be true for some people. But meritocracy takes people to the top. Maybe being well
Placed gets you to the middle a bit faster. But, the top? So now they have done away with it we find incompetence still shows up once it gets a chance. As it did with Claudine.
I saw so much of this in grad school with a certain demo of students. I'm sure it won't surprise you, but some of the worst offenders (not plagiarists, but those who can't think or write to save their lives, constantly hand-held by faculty, entire theses re-written line by line under the direct, physical supervision of an advisor, and so on) got the best jobs. In some cases, tenure track jobs at research universities lmao.
Academia is such a joke, I'm somewhat disappointed I wasn't able to continue my career there because I did enjoy my discipline and students, but also I'm so disgusted by it that I've never lost sleep over being pushed out for vax refusal. I'd do it again tomorrow.
I dropped out of college (public city university) in my first semester and then went back to try again in the early '70s. I took an anthropology class and liked the professor very much but this was one of the lesser community colleges (2 year associate degree institution) and there were a lot of lesser students.
Our final paper was supposed to be, if I recall, 5-8 pages. I turned in a 2-pager and had little hope of course. We were to be notified of grade via postcard since this was the end of the spring semester.
I got an A and the instructor wrote "brilliant final paper." At that point I saw the horizon clearly and eventually, after trying off and on for a few more semesters at a better branch of CUNY, I realized I was torturing myself for no discernible good reason, and dropped out for good.
Are you kidding with the "5-8" pages? (Insert exclamation marks, as many as you like.)
5-8 pages was what we got when I was 15, in compulsory school. KomVux (prep-school for adults aiming for university, basically) we had 8-10 as the normal amount.
University, hoo-boy. Second semester when I was doing english as a second language, one of the courses was "English 17th century literature". One classic/week. One essay/classic. 10-20 pages, excluding covers et c.
C and D level essays (the stage before becoming a researcher student or doctorate student, roughly) was minimum 50 pages text, not counting appnedixes or images or anything but the text.
Heck, we had exams in literary analysis where we had to sit and write by hand. Rough outline, then a draft in lead pencil, then the final thing using biros or pens. Minimum 20 pages. Time alotted was four hours, no breaks.
You can't seriously mean the final paper in an anthropolgy class at university-level was 5-8 pages!?
If that is true (And I don't doubt you, I just don't want to believe it!) US higher education is boned and has been for a long time because by now, all the teachers, tutors, professors and lencturers have all been through an educational system with w-a-y too low standards.
This was one of the lesser community colleges (two-year degree) that fed into the four-year CUNY (City University of NY) system and I entered it after having dropped out from a different one four years previously. I was in the evening classes since I had a full-time job during the day. This was not a place for students who'd demonstrated ability to do challenging coursework. (My HS career had not been stellar. Anything I could ace without work--English, Social Studies, History--I did fine in. Anything that required application and a degree of natural aptitude and interest--math, science--I did very poorly in. My HS average was not especially indicative of future chances of success.)
I do wonder how that professor ended up in such a place of purgatory. I didn't want to fail the class or anything, but I didn't like realizing that a quality teacher would demand so little from me.
I realized I had sufficient talents to be the executive secretary type at a series of mostly lousy jobs that paid well enough for a lower-middle-class lifestyle in NY and I had zero career aspirations. I mostly wanted to be left alone to enjoy my modest pleasures and by that time I understood that self-education through reading was a better use of my time.
Then again, I know we're on the same path here now and it's going fast. Example:
To get into the Teachers' Training College when I applied, you needed 20 out of 20 as your grade average, and even the there was competition for the slots available, decided by casting lots. You could also do the entry exam for univeristy and college (in swedish, college is called "högskola" which literally translates to high school in english, causing confusion when swedes sometimes say they spent "five years in high school learning maths" when they mean college), and needed a 1.7 out of 2.0 (the maximum).
If you'd do the entry exam blind-folded, you'd get 0.1-0.3, since it's a multiple options-test.
Last time I checked, the Teachers' College I belonged to had 0.13 as the bar for entry. I spoke to a younger teachers about this and about final papers - mine were a 50+ monstrosity about "The usage of adjectives in establishing moods and atmosphere in early 20th century pulp literature", and an equal-length bore-you-to-tears "On the usage of the skull motif in pop-culture; its roots and origins in history".
His final paper? A five-page "essay" on "Alice in Wonderland". In scope, it was the equivalent to what ten-year olds were expected to produce when my mother went to school.
From my brother I know that the university he works at has had to institute compulsory 0-point classes after hours in maths, logic/abstract thinking, and grammar/spelling in swedish.
Not to mention that parents sometimes call to set up a parent-teacher conference to argue grades.
At university. The facepalms, they are not enough.
Those multiple-choice exams, may they have glory in Paradise. I managed to graduate (American) hs because of them.
The education in NY State was overseen by a Board of Regents and you had to pass Regents exams in core subjects in order to graduate with an academic diploma. Passing grade was 65/100.
I needed to pass Geometry. My class average all year was never higher, as I recall, than 20/100. But they could not fail you for the year if you passed the Regents. I confirmed that with the teacher and she laughed at the possibility. Said I'd be out of that class so fast if I passed...
I didn't bother studying. I knew nothing. Why should I torture myself earlier than necessary?
I got a 71. I'm sure my teacher went to her grave wondering how I cheated. I didn't. I'm sure that the written proofs for any work we needed to show pulled my grade down badly. But them multiple-choice questions? God bless 'em.
My first semester, at a new 4-year college in the CUNY system, I knew I had no chance to graduate. A required course was a combination of physics and chemistry and the first lecture, I didn't understand a word. That seriously diminished my enthusiasm for college since that unpassable course would be hanging over my head all four years.
The 2-year school where I took that anthropology class was far less rigorous. In those days, that sort of community college offered a lot of tech degrees in health-related fields like phys therapy/dental assistant (if I remember back all those years) and non-academic-minded kids could get a decent enough certification that would let them earn a living. The more academically-minded were just there to pull up their grade averages and quality for transfer to a 4-year school. In those days I was still smarting a bit that in the world's view I'd fucked up my future compared to my friends who were at those 4-year schools and had career aspirations.
Last year I was full-time employed, in 2000, I was earning more than my friend from 5th grade who had two Masters degrees and was an accountant for NYC.
I know everybody wants to vent about this and get a lot of snide remarks out of their system, but I want to circle back to the analysis for a moment and try to figure our what happens next.
This is actually an incredibly dangerous situation for Harvard that will inevitably blow up in their face. If they think they can just skate by and bury the issue and it will all go away, they are mistaken. They have already lost a huge amount of funding and respect because of this, and Gay will continue to be a lightning rod for criticism as long as she is there.
Furthermore, I would have to think that, even at Harvard, there are still a few professors capable of doing real intellectual work who have had about enough of playing second fiddle to these obvious diversity-hires and grifters. As long as the diversity problem in academia wasn't so openly talked about, they could grit their teeth and pretend that they were still serving the greater good by making such sacrifices, and they could continue to draw a fat paycheck in exchange for staying mum on the subject.
But now it's too out in the open. Nobody can deny that this woman is a complete fraud. AT some point, somebody is going to call her out, and any academic who wants to salvage what's left of his intellectual integrity will have to do likewise. This is going to split the Harvard faculty; it's going to destroy the school completely if it's allowed to continue.
Therefore, I predict the Ms. Gay's reprieve is only temporary. She will be thrown out, her and others like her in many institutions of higher learning. A sea change is underway and people everywhere are sick of this.
In my selfish schadenfreudish cynicism, I hope she stays and thereby makes those supportive folks grit their teeth ever harder, until they all need crowns on every molar.
Jackson. 'Oublie ca' as they say in Quebec. Sotomayor made some pretty outlandish claims about COVID not supported by data or evidence. I heard similar comments of misinformation made by Canadian judges as well.
I wouldn't let these people judge a food competition on the Food Network let alone major issues that impact society.
In due course, the justices will be required to consider a lower court ruling on "transgender" issues--and Jackson won't define "woman."
Sotomayor, who famously claimed 100,000 children were hospitalized with covid, is probably exempt from food judging b/c she blames everything on being diabetic.
There is no context that can justify this attack on a non-heteronormative woman of color. I am literally shaking after reading this brazen display of weaponized patriarchal logic, and no longer feel safe.
Where else can you go to wait in line for 2 hours to be greeted by a bureaucrat who's sense of equity is treating everyone with equal contempt as a sign of their own fair mindedness?!!
She checks so many diversity boxes for the Hahvahd board, they probably had a collective DEI orgasm when they hired her. Do we know her pronoun or gender status? Has that been plagiarized too?
I am guessing she acts and dresses like a lesbian for further street ‘cred’. Sort of like in my city you would swear every barista is gay. But only half are. The other half merely act gay.
A postgraduate award for DEI fans : PhD in Cut and Paste ; a consideration of the justification for academic appropriation by minorities as an integral component of their lived experience.
"If she wants to stay in education, she should resign and find a job teaching in obscurity at an elementary school somewhere." For what its worth, when my business closed I took a job as a substitute teacher, in middle school no less. It was the happiest and most enjoyable job I have ever had. So good on you to suggest this fine alternative to an otherwise not-so-fine diverse human.
Please don't subject innocent elementary students to someone who would teach children that their skin color is the basis of their grades and awards. She shouldn't be teaching anywhere.
I don't doubt that what you say about her incompetence and her place in the Diversity-Academia-Complex is accurate.
However, as a politically unaligned and perennially sceptical observer, I can't help but question the particular timing of Gay's take down. Her critics on the right seem to be tagging onto the coattails of a bipartisan pro-Zionist (and well-funded) constituency. In doing so, they seem to have forgotten that only yesterday, their pleas for freedom of academic thought with regard to trans-scepticism fell on deaf ears.
For me, Glen Greenwald has struck the right tone: fine to defend the rights of students to call for genocide, but let's have some consistency here: They must also have the right to oppose LGBT groups, feminism or whatever other -ism is popular with the 'Black Lives Matter' lawn sign, New England liberal brigade.
I think what's happened here, is that Gay's stock has fallen to the point that accusations which have been circulating since 2022, and which nobody was willing to go near previously, can now make their way out to wider audiences. This often happens with public figures.
Otherwise I would say, Gay's statements on genocide were obnoxious for the precisely the double standard Greenwald indicates.
Great post! I agree!
When I wrote about Prof. Gay, I also mentioned my personal peeve that people plagiarize my entire Substack posts, pretend they wrote them, and give me zero credit.
Like, they could mention my name in some tiny footnote...
I'm awaiting an official pronouncement that accusations of plagiarism are racist.
Better still: SYSTEMIC racism.
They already have said this is ‘white supremacy’ …
With a tincture of climate change correlation thrown in.
Climate Justice!!
That's exactly something the people's republic of cambridge would do
Is that the People's Republic of Cambridge USA, or the People's Republic of Cambridge UK? Hold on. It's both!
both
Original thought is now deemed racist. Only ideas approved by the central authority is not racist.
Lexical rape.
Good Lord, I’ve just had brain hemorrhage at this…🤣
'Bad old whitey' is the cause of every real and imagined slight or problem, with certain people who have been conditioned to see themselves as victims.
Ha,ha it will my dear it will
You need to back up a step or two Rosie. We have accusations of plagiarism because we have academic standards. In all cases, it is the standards that are racists, because people like Claudine Gay cannot meet them. BTW, there is a great meme on Revolver News that refers to her as ClauDEIne Gay.
Have you considered, writing a stack thanking the plagarist for broadcasting your work, and using their name as a headline - underscored and in bold?
You are probably not as vulgar and hateful as me but at least the above thought made me smile!
in the 1600 and 1700s music was plagiarized big time. We would probably not have known Vivaldi, had it not been that JS Bach plagiarized some of his music. Times change, tho. I don't know how it was found out, that the great Bach used pieces of Vivaldi and arranged them, may be he did mention it.
This is misleading. Bach did not plagiarize Vivaldi. He made transcriptions by hand, arranging the concertos for organ; the main purpose was to understand Vivaldi's distinctive and innovative style from the inside (not just as a listener).
The test is this: When were Bach's Vivaldi transcriptions published? That is, when did the transcriptions enter the marketplace? The answer is: not until the mid-19th century, so more a century after Bach's death.
There were various further hand copies circulated, and the composer of the original was not always indicated on these. The son, W.F. Bach, for example, made a hand copy several decades after his father's death, indicating that he had made the copy from one of his father's manuscripts; the original composer of the concerto, Vivaldi, isn't mentioned. Whether W.F. was unaware of Vivaldi's authorship, or whether he thought it was too obvious to mention, we don't know, but this is clearly not J.S. Bach's responsibility, and in any case, there was still no publication and no commercial gain. The first publications of the transcriptions, in the mid-19th century, lacked the attribution to Vivaldi simply because that composer had fallen into obscurity by that stage. Italian music scholars in the late 19th century started to explore Vivaldi's music, and the correct attributions were gradually added in later editions.
In Claudine Gray's case, it is true that academic papers don't bring the author direct remuneration, but their publication is essential for promotion and the attainment of higher pay grades, so there is no point of comparison between her plagiarism and Bach's transcriptions.
I just kinda wanted to say that 'using other people's stuff' to build on has been quite come throughout the ages. I think that is what civilisation is about : build further on the blocks we have. I did not mean it that Bach did not have the brilliance he certainly had
Plagiarism is a moral failing, and liable to professional or institutional disciplinary action; if the monetary gain is high enough, it may lead to legal action.
In the particular case you chose, there was no plagiarism under any workable definition: Bach was not claiming authorship, nor in any case did he enjoy any material gain. Let's say you take up oil painting, and after many years of hard work and great progress, you gain permission at an art museum to copy some of their paintings for your personal use. You hang them up at home, and give a few away as presents to friends. Then someone accuses you of being an art fraudster. Which are you more likely to say "Yes, you've caught me out, I'm an art fraudster." or "Your accusation is both malicious and ridiculous"?
There is also no point in redefining "plagiarism" so that it takes in the whole of civilisational progress. It's a kind of positivism to think that a concept must either have razor-sharp boundaries or else it just blends in with the cosmos. Academic plagiarism runs from the obvious, such as lifting whole paragraphs verbatim from an unacknowledged original, through alterations that make detection harder, such as word variation, or translation, to more difficult areas like taking the structure of an argument. Beyond that, there are subtleties such as Author 1 citing an obscure primary-source document in a footnote without crediting Author 2, whose secondary source writing, based on months of arduous archival research was the direct source of Author 1's knowledge of the document.
It is within the normal exercise of human intelligence in developed societies to debate over moral and juridical problems that are vexed. We don't simply throw up our hands and say that every composer, painter, researcher or inventor would need to start from scratch and return to the paleolithic to avoid being guilty of some kind of all-encompassing notion of plagiarism - if all acts in these domains are plagiarism, then the word plagiarism drops out of use, and another word would have to be found for the same concept.
And they ALL stole it from me, the greatest composer of all time! :)
Elon Musk has been accused of being a corporate plagiarist so to speak. By appropriating ideas he didn't create or merely riding the coat tails of other people's talent.
Oh come on. There’s no civilization at all without all of us using and improving on ideas we didn’t originate.
Just saying the accusation is out there.
To your point, I guess they can say the same of Edison?
Bill Gates?
Well, put it this way. He didn't get where he is because of his good looks and charm.
plagiarist if ever there was one. thief rather, I would say. Steal others ideas and then bankrupt them
Or steal their business and kill them…oops.
So they say about him too!
It's a grey area. All inventions build on previous ones, as does scientific theory.
and lots by misunderstanding. I just read a book how Louis Pasteur misunderstood the ideas of Bechamp, changed them a bit and ran off with the bootie. And it gets more and more clear that Bechamp meant different and had it right, and Pasteur wrong
Good info! Thank you.
I guess the real insult is that, after the 'theft,' or 'tribute,' there is no attribution for the author - really hurtful for the victim.
I guess eugyppius can't do it without giving away his real identity...
The sacred MLK plagiarized most of his doctoral thesis, which came out in the '90s...Abundant excuses flowed nonstop from the usual suspects...Prof. Larry Tribe at Harvard Law, an alleged Constitutional scholar, published a book in which whole sections were plagiarized from a BU Professor...His excuse was that he didn't write the book, his assistant did.No penalty...It's everywhere....
This will be pointedly ignored by most commenters here. "Conservatives" have made an idol of this degenerate phony communist, and I don't see them backing off that particular idol worship any time soon. The glory in it because it shows how not racist they are, which is certainly THE most important thing in the world in the present age.
The fount from which the rest of the sewage has flowed even if some of the little grasshoppers in training have never heard of the man or only vaguely.
So are you Black? Are you Female? Are you a member of an officially designated Oppressed Class? No? Have you apologised then.... for not being?
It´s all about applied ethic and inner discipline to not steel the idea´s and work of other´s
Igor, you are correct. What you describe is everyday plagiarism, which is the stealing of other people's ideas. It is shameful to steal without attribution. Oth, you are supremely readable, so plagiarizing you is the sincerest form of flattery. But Gay cited her sources in every paragraph she is accused of plagiarizing.
wow, tacky and dumb
I am amazed that people actually do this. Have you been able to contact them regarding their plagiarism ??
I personally do not even bother. One time I contacted Infowars and they corrected their attribution. It was not exactly plagiarism, more like confusion about authorship, in that case
Sounds like Infowars has more integrity than Harvard.
much more
Ha! No one ever plagiarizes me! I must be...hmmm...maybe....I think I’ll change the subject.
How do they sleep at night?
I have noticed that the Dutch Frontnieuws sometimes omits the credits. Mostly they do though.
yeah, that is a bad website
I suspect kids aren't taught about plagiarism any more. Or citations. But Gay should have known better....she DID know better. She just thought she would not be caught or questioned on it.
Just a note, Chris Brunet at Karlstack has been investigating the academic fraud of Claudine Gay for over a year and a half, too, including charges of fabricating data (https://www.karlstack.com/p/exclusive-leaked-report-shows-harvard). That was before she was made president of the university, no less. Gay's career is a total mess, with lots of really concerning connections to e.g. Epstein. This particular rabbit holes seems to go way, way down...
Geez, how big was that island?
Well, I am told there was a lot of vertical stacking involved...
😂😂😂
And plenty of beaches. Sandy ones, that is.
Chris has published a new version of that post, feeling the original was too emotional: https://open.substack.com/pub/karlstack/p/leaked-documents-the-president-of.
Great slapdown. Gay is fake. Fake and ghey.
Integrity among elites is non-existent. A mere 20 years ago, the University of Notre Dame fired its head football coach a few weeks after hiring him because a journalist scoured his academic record and noticed that it was embellished. Now, the president of the most prestigious university in the world is caught stealing the efforts of others, and the Hollow Men unsheathe their swords and swing them vigorously in the Kween's defense. Of course, being head football coach at Notre Dame is a far more important position, but still...
This Race Communism needs to end.
“...most prestigious university in the world” ...hopefully not much longer. All of these woke universities need to either be completely overhauled or destroyed. They are as bad as corrupt government entities & corporations
I wondered how prestigious it could be when they gave former fast-food employee Jabcinda Ardern an honorary law degree.
These elites love to aggrandize each other; I believe that dope, Prince William, also put her at the head of one of his greenie initiatives. All while the jab slaughter in NZ under her tyranny is coming to light
William really does appear to be a dope, following faithfully in his father's not so benign footsteps.
They aren't called the Cream of Society for nothing: rich and thick.
Delusional & entitled footsteps for sure.
It's because she was amply rewarded (including financially) by her globalist handlers, as she, like Macron, Turdeau, the Criminal Biden Family, etc. shamelessly pushed the Marxist/globalist Agenda 21/2030, the mRNA jab depopulation agenda, the "Great Reset," and its slogan "Build Back Better". Here's a 1-minute clip of her being a traitor to New Zealand sovereignty --
https://rumble.com/vtall0-new-zealand-pm-comrade-jacinda-ardern-openly-speaks-about-the-reset-agenda-.html
She left NZ because the $100M in a Swiss bank account can be spent abroad without the NZ tax man wondering where the money came from.
She?
Ostensibly.
Love the name “Jabcinda.”
Every pharma-phacist needs a good nickname.
Actually, it's "Comrade" Jabcinda, as she was the President of the International Union of Socialist Youth in 2009. https://rumble.com/vou6ea-comrade-jacinda-ardern.html
And a job, no?
Well said indeed
This is the face of affirmative action and too big to fail.
A place where you are encouraged to use large type and double spacing.
A place where creativity can be created by emancipating it from a WASP.
A magical utopia where parenthesis can walk off pages, free of their shackles .
What's truly scary is that the same "equity" policies are putting unqualified fools in charge of aircraft, air traffic control and military organisations.
I suspect she will ultimately be moved sideways at the least, not immediately, but in time..
I could see a year from now she tearfully steps down, with $10M in her pocket, saying right wing racist attacks forced this.
It will happen quietly without fanfare and she likely reap a payout to go away. Sad because of DEI gestapo, there will no repurcussions for her. We live in a sick sick culture where evil is rewarded and the innocent and truth-tellers are hunted.
Agree. Any good reCHEAT offender must be protected from non-cheat oppressors
"Race communism".
I see what you did there. Well played - only one brand of marxist theory focused on race, and we all know which one.
It would be a grave injustice to impose her upon even elementary school students anywhere. She should not be teaching anyone anything other than how to plagiarize. She should resign and begin over by enrolling as a student at a school where rigorous thought is taught and practiced - such as Hillsdale College. She has, however, contributed something of original and unique value to academia. She has devised the irrefutable “Gay Defense” for plagiarism which hereafter can be used by any Harvard student threatened with disciplinary action for plagiarism.
Absolutely.
We can only stop systemic racism if we evenly distribute creativity and merit!
That's what equity's all about, no?
Well of course, if in your self righteous beneficence, you are committed to equity by evenly distributing poverty!
This is the typically unspoken point: "Especially in light of the relaxed standards to which the Diverse are subject." Here is a related point: plagiarism is much easier to get away with on these subjects because few people read or care about the work. The purpose of the work is to generate the work--not for it to be consumed. It's a universal social science writing maximizer. Not fit for human consumption.
A lot to say about this. The Diverse generally get through graduate school via a kind of soft and technically permissible 'plagiarism' – they're constantly "workshopping" each other's papers, their advisers are perpetually helping them rewrite their terrible prose, etc. I guess people like Gay can't write any other way and end up producing work that is just a patchwork of phrases from other people's stuff. And because research on the Diverse is generally a mutually promoting hugbox, the risk of getting called out by the people you plagiarise is minimal.
Our current ruling class are the kids who got caught cheating in high-school because they wrote the name of the person they were cheating from in the space they were supposed to put their name.
And what you're seeing now is what it looks like when the classroom has nobody left they can cheat from.
Now shut up and obey!
Our current ruling class own central banks. The people you are referring to are their sock puppets. Our rulers literally couldn't care if it was an actual puppet. The very fact events like this happen with no consequences is just evidence it is in decline and will fail. It is just a matter of time.
I can’t like this enough. As much as I love eugy’s posts, I must admit I get as much joy reading the comments.
Thx!
Yeah me too. Lots of witty people on this board.
"Our current ruling class are the kids who got caught cheating in high-school because they wrote the name of the person they were cheating from in the space they were supposed to put their name."
Classic!
"Hugbox."
Reason for my subscription: brilliant made-up words...
i wish i could claim hugbox for myself, alas it was invented by others more clever than me to describe the 'safe space' phenomenon.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hugbox
"Hugbox", a new genderless term for "Circle jerk"?
Similarly, this occurs in Law School. In one example I personally know about, the diverse student was failing to keep up and failing classes. He was personally tutored by a diversity hire on the law school faculty. When his abysmal grades and class standing warranted dismissal, they allowed him to take a reduced course load the next semester that eliminated the "mandatory" Constitutional Law Class. He did somehow manage to graduate with faculty intervention, but I always wondered if he passed the Bar. In my opinion, this type of Law School acceptance and graduation of an unprepared and, dare I say it, incapable student, is why we're seeing a breakdown in our legal, judicial, and legislative systems. Diversity as a singlular metric leads to unprepared faculty who perpetuate the selection of unprepared students who are undeservedly credentialed. As this philosophy has gained traction in all areas of society, it replicates and insinuates itself into all facets of life, much like a pandemic. I have to wonder if there is any possibility of reinstating merit, honesty, and scholarly honor, in the academic world given the extent of the indoctrination, laws, precedents, and agendas of those who have the power to change things. Sadly, the Harvard retention of Gay leads to a negative conclusion.
"Hugbox"--nice.
I will be plagiarizing “hugbox” from here onward. I will try to notate.
'The purpose of the work is to generate the work--not for it to be consumed.'
That was my thought too. The little bit that's presented here made my eyes glaze over.
Yup. Excellent observation Jim.
The "suit" is the point if you want to sit with the suits in the suites.
As long as you wear the "right" suit, it matters not if you are well suited
If you have the right skin color or genitalia you are automatically well suited.
They've "paid" for this nonsense by convincing everyone else they need to pay for a suit.
Good one, mr Gardner!
Though the line about skin colour and genitalia made me think of "Buffalo Bill" from the 'Silence of the Lambs'.
"It puts the references in its essays, or else it gets the hose again!"
Everyone kept saying there never was meritocracy. People did well because they were placed in the system well. There was/is an argument that might be true for some people. But meritocracy takes people to the top. Maybe being well
Placed gets you to the middle a bit faster. But, the top? So now they have done away with it we find incompetence still shows up once it gets a chance. As it did with Claudine.
Yet the Emperor has no clothes…
Well played!
Everyone knows Harvard’s Gay, but have you met her Board and Bobo? The latter said he was fine with her plagiarism of his work. The 12 commissars on the Corproation who voted to keep her are just as compromised and demoralized as she is: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-get-into-harvard-gay-bobo-corporation
Claudine Gay is the personification of chutzpah: She reportedly attended the recent ceremonial lighting of Harvard's menorah.
UPDATE: I just learned that while Harvard displays a menorah, IT MUST BE REMOVED EVERY NIGHT, TO PREVENT IT FROM BEING VANDALIZED.
How's that for "context."
She lit it with a **tiki torch**!!! Talk about "tone deaf"!!!
Was anyone wearing white robes & hoods?
He likely plagiarized his work. He can’t ask for an investigation as he would be found out.
I saw so much of this in grad school with a certain demo of students. I'm sure it won't surprise you, but some of the worst offenders (not plagiarists, but those who can't think or write to save their lives, constantly hand-held by faculty, entire theses re-written line by line under the direct, physical supervision of an advisor, and so on) got the best jobs. In some cases, tenure track jobs at research universities lmao.
Academia is such a joke, I'm somewhat disappointed I wasn't able to continue my career there because I did enjoy my discipline and students, but also I'm so disgusted by it that I've never lost sleep over being pushed out for vax refusal. I'd do it again tomorrow.
Standards have been poor for a very long time.
I dropped out of college (public city university) in my first semester and then went back to try again in the early '70s. I took an anthropology class and liked the professor very much but this was one of the lesser community colleges (2 year associate degree institution) and there were a lot of lesser students.
Our final paper was supposed to be, if I recall, 5-8 pages. I turned in a 2-pager and had little hope of course. We were to be notified of grade via postcard since this was the end of the spring semester.
I got an A and the instructor wrote "brilliant final paper." At that point I saw the horizon clearly and eventually, after trying off and on for a few more semesters at a better branch of CUNY, I realized I was torturing myself for no discernible good reason, and dropped out for good.
Are you kidding with the "5-8" pages? (Insert exclamation marks, as many as you like.)
5-8 pages was what we got when I was 15, in compulsory school. KomVux (prep-school for adults aiming for university, basically) we had 8-10 as the normal amount.
University, hoo-boy. Second semester when I was doing english as a second language, one of the courses was "English 17th century literature". One classic/week. One essay/classic. 10-20 pages, excluding covers et c.
C and D level essays (the stage before becoming a researcher student or doctorate student, roughly) was minimum 50 pages text, not counting appnedixes or images or anything but the text.
Heck, we had exams in literary analysis where we had to sit and write by hand. Rough outline, then a draft in lead pencil, then the final thing using biros or pens. Minimum 20 pages. Time alotted was four hours, no breaks.
You can't seriously mean the final paper in an anthropolgy class at university-level was 5-8 pages!?
If that is true (And I don't doubt you, I just don't want to believe it!) US higher education is boned and has been for a long time because by now, all the teachers, tutors, professors and lencturers have all been through an educational system with w-a-y too low standards.
This was one of the lesser community colleges (two-year degree) that fed into the four-year CUNY (City University of NY) system and I entered it after having dropped out from a different one four years previously. I was in the evening classes since I had a full-time job during the day. This was not a place for students who'd demonstrated ability to do challenging coursework. (My HS career had not been stellar. Anything I could ace without work--English, Social Studies, History--I did fine in. Anything that required application and a degree of natural aptitude and interest--math, science--I did very poorly in. My HS average was not especially indicative of future chances of success.)
I do wonder how that professor ended up in such a place of purgatory. I didn't want to fail the class or anything, but I didn't like realizing that a quality teacher would demand so little from me.
I realized I had sufficient talents to be the executive secretary type at a series of mostly lousy jobs that paid well enough for a lower-middle-class lifestyle in NY and I had zero career aspirations. I mostly wanted to be left alone to enjoy my modest pleasures and by that time I understood that self-education through reading was a better use of my time.
I'm mostly shocked by the low page count.
Then again, I know we're on the same path here now and it's going fast. Example:
To get into the Teachers' Training College when I applied, you needed 20 out of 20 as your grade average, and even the there was competition for the slots available, decided by casting lots. You could also do the entry exam for univeristy and college (in swedish, college is called "högskola" which literally translates to high school in english, causing confusion when swedes sometimes say they spent "five years in high school learning maths" when they mean college), and needed a 1.7 out of 2.0 (the maximum).
If you'd do the entry exam blind-folded, you'd get 0.1-0.3, since it's a multiple options-test.
Last time I checked, the Teachers' College I belonged to had 0.13 as the bar for entry. I spoke to a younger teachers about this and about final papers - mine were a 50+ monstrosity about "The usage of adjectives in establishing moods and atmosphere in early 20th century pulp literature", and an equal-length bore-you-to-tears "On the usage of the skull motif in pop-culture; its roots and origins in history".
His final paper? A five-page "essay" on "Alice in Wonderland". In scope, it was the equivalent to what ten-year olds were expected to produce when my mother went to school.
From my brother I know that the university he works at has had to institute compulsory 0-point classes after hours in maths, logic/abstract thinking, and grammar/spelling in swedish.
Not to mention that parents sometimes call to set up a parent-teacher conference to argue grades.
At university. The facepalms, they are not enough.
Those multiple-choice exams, may they have glory in Paradise. I managed to graduate (American) hs because of them.
The education in NY State was overseen by a Board of Regents and you had to pass Regents exams in core subjects in order to graduate with an academic diploma. Passing grade was 65/100.
I needed to pass Geometry. My class average all year was never higher, as I recall, than 20/100. But they could not fail you for the year if you passed the Regents. I confirmed that with the teacher and she laughed at the possibility. Said I'd be out of that class so fast if I passed...
I didn't bother studying. I knew nothing. Why should I torture myself earlier than necessary?
I got a 71. I'm sure my teacher went to her grave wondering how I cheated. I didn't. I'm sure that the written proofs for any work we needed to show pulled my grade down badly. But them multiple-choice questions? God bless 'em.
My first semester, at a new 4-year college in the CUNY system, I knew I had no chance to graduate. A required course was a combination of physics and chemistry and the first lecture, I didn't understand a word. That seriously diminished my enthusiasm for college since that unpassable course would be hanging over my head all four years.
The 2-year school where I took that anthropology class was far less rigorous. In those days, that sort of community college offered a lot of tech degrees in health-related fields like phys therapy/dental assistant (if I remember back all those years) and non-academic-minded kids could get a decent enough certification that would let them earn a living. The more academically-minded were just there to pull up their grade averages and quality for transfer to a 4-year school. In those days I was still smarting a bit that in the world's view I'd fucked up my future compared to my friends who were at those 4-year schools and had career aspirations.
Last year I was full-time employed, in 2000, I was earning more than my friend from 5th grade who had two Masters degrees and was an accountant for NYC.
Life be funny that way.
I know everybody wants to vent about this and get a lot of snide remarks out of their system, but I want to circle back to the analysis for a moment and try to figure our what happens next.
This is actually an incredibly dangerous situation for Harvard that will inevitably blow up in their face. If they think they can just skate by and bury the issue and it will all go away, they are mistaken. They have already lost a huge amount of funding and respect because of this, and Gay will continue to be a lightning rod for criticism as long as she is there.
Furthermore, I would have to think that, even at Harvard, there are still a few professors capable of doing real intellectual work who have had about enough of playing second fiddle to these obvious diversity-hires and grifters. As long as the diversity problem in academia wasn't so openly talked about, they could grit their teeth and pretend that they were still serving the greater good by making such sacrifices, and they could continue to draw a fat paycheck in exchange for staying mum on the subject.
But now it's too out in the open. Nobody can deny that this woman is a complete fraud. AT some point, somebody is going to call her out, and any academic who wants to salvage what's left of his intellectual integrity will have to do likewise. This is going to split the Harvard faculty; it's going to destroy the school completely if it's allowed to continue.
Therefore, I predict the Ms. Gay's reprieve is only temporary. She will be thrown out, her and others like her in many institutions of higher learning. A sea change is underway and people everywhere are sick of this.
i think she’s likely done too.
In my selfish schadenfreudish cynicism, I hope she stays and thereby makes those supportive folks grit their teeth ever harder, until they all need crowns on every molar.
It's just a skin suit now anyway. Let it die.
Great comment. Agreed.
Alternate title: Claudine Gay, Equity Hire
She can share it with two US Supreme Court associate justices.
Jackson. 'Oublie ca' as they say in Quebec. Sotomayor made some pretty outlandish claims about COVID not supported by data or evidence. I heard similar comments of misinformation made by Canadian judges as well.
I wouldn't let these people judge a food competition on the Food Network let alone major issues that impact society.
"Impact society" INDEED.
In due course, the justices will be required to consider a lower court ruling on "transgender" issues--and Jackson won't define "woman."
Sotomayor, who famously claimed 100,000 children were hospitalized with covid, is probably exempt from food judging b/c she blames everything on being diabetic.
These idiots are the Poster Girls for DEI.
And a Vice President.
Ah yes! She passed the Word Salad Bar Exam.
lol
Excellent article. I’m really enjoying watching these empty heads get exposed. The 700
“professors” that supported her should be thrown out, as well. The rot is deep there.
There is no context that can justify this attack on a non-heteronormative woman of color. I am literally shaking after reading this brazen display of weaponized patriarchal logic, and no longer feel safe.
Whew, strong words! I agree 100% with everything you said. But I don’t want her in an elementary school.
She belongs at the DMV
Well of course!
Where else can you go to wait in line for 2 hours to be greeted by a bureaucrat who's sense of equity is treating everyone with equal contempt as a sign of their own fair mindedness?!!
As someone who drives for a living in MA, good Lord please NO!
omg
Ha! I was thinking the same thing!
She checks so many diversity boxes for the Hahvahd board, they probably had a collective DEI orgasm when they hired her. Do we know her pronoun or gender status? Has that been plagiarized too?
Even her surname fits the narrative
😁👊🏻
Her appearance and surname notwithstanding, she is married to a white academic named Christopher Afendulis and they have a teenage son.
I am guessing she acts and dresses like a lesbian for further street ‘cred’. Sort of like in my city you would swear every barista is gay. But only half are. The other half merely act gay.
A postgraduate award for DEI fans : PhD in Cut and Paste ; a consideration of the justification for academic appropriation by minorities as an integral component of their lived experience.
Is this silly enough to pass muster in wokeland?
"If she wants to stay in education, she should resign and find a job teaching in obscurity at an elementary school somewhere." For what its worth, when my business closed I took a job as a substitute teacher, in middle school no less. It was the happiest and most enjoyable job I have ever had. So good on you to suggest this fine alternative to an otherwise not-so-fine diverse human.
Please don't subject innocent elementary students to someone who would teach children that their skin color is the basis of their grades and awards. She shouldn't be teaching anywhere.
Middle school can be wonderful (my favorite were 8th grade boys)--like toddlers, middle school gets a bad rap.
You have my admiration. I tried to teach 8th grade boys and it damn near killed me!
I don't doubt that what you say about her incompetence and her place in the Diversity-Academia-Complex is accurate.
However, as a politically unaligned and perennially sceptical observer, I can't help but question the particular timing of Gay's take down. Her critics on the right seem to be tagging onto the coattails of a bipartisan pro-Zionist (and well-funded) constituency. In doing so, they seem to have forgotten that only yesterday, their pleas for freedom of academic thought with regard to trans-scepticism fell on deaf ears.
For me, Glen Greenwald has struck the right tone: fine to defend the rights of students to call for genocide, but let's have some consistency here: They must also have the right to oppose LGBT groups, feminism or whatever other -ism is popular with the 'Black Lives Matter' lawn sign, New England liberal brigade.
Free speech must cut both ways.
I think what's happened here, is that Gay's stock has fallen to the point that accusations which have been circulating since 2022, and which nobody was willing to go near previously, can now make their way out to wider audiences. This often happens with public figures.
Otherwise I would say, Gay's statements on genocide were obnoxious for the precisely the double standard Greenwald indicates.