This appears to be an actual course listing from Harvard University.
Dr. Claudine Gay, whose plagiarism was so blatant she was forced to resign as President of Harvard...
Is teaching a GRADUATE COURSE in "Reading and Research" that will prepare students for how to participate professionally in the field of study under question, whether Microbiology, American History, or Philosophy.
This is a "nuts and bolts" class. Students also take content courses and seminars to learn the material and scholarship in their discipline. The two kinds of classes make you a scholar or scientist.
Failure to cite sources (or cite them accurately) is considered the greatest sin in academia. Stealing ideas and presenting them as your own at any level — whether the general structures of ideas, or using exact words or phrases — is simply unacceptable. It is dishonesty in the form of disrespect: Disrespect towards both your unacknowledged source and your trusting reader.
This is exactly what Claudine Gay was caught doing.
There is no other way to see the evidence. If a freshman did this in my class, they would fail - and perhaps be expelled. The clarity of theft here is breathtaking.
Is it really necessary for me to translate the single Latin word on Harvard's seal for you?
For those of us who have been through years of graduate school, it should not ever be a temptation to steal the work of another - if we are truly passionate and serious about our arena of study, we treat the field and its contributors and its students with respect.
Scholars supposedly love what they do! Why would you cheat on what you love?
This is a particularly nasty kind of lie: Claiming originality, while stealing another's labor. Wearing the costume of impressive intellectual prowess. For those of us who have spent thousands of hours in research libraries and archives, carefully documenting our studies, citing our predecessors accurately and with appropriate deference and, in some cases, perhaps daring to challenge the conclusions of brilliant thinkers who came before us and influenced our own thinking, blatant plagiarism is appalling.
And seeing it practiced by the President of Harvard is shockingly disorienting.
And now Harvard has her teaching Research and Writing — a course which always involves close consideration of research methodology and proper attribution, with intense concentration on ethical scholarship.
This is so inconceivable as to be downright comic.
For 30 years, I've walked students through "the plagiarism talk." I understand when an undergraduate makes an error. Or even when they fall into temptation to plagiarize. But I can have no respect for a supposed senior scholar who is caught lying and stealing.
I know there are good people and honest scholars at Harvard, and at other schools less prestigious. But maybe the serious Harvardians should change their motto to Falsitas. That might be more honest, frankly.
The levels of irony here feel like a set of parallel mirrors, approaching a disappearing infinity of lost truth.
How can anyone take Harvard seriously now?
The idols of the world fall one by one, under examination, don't they?
Which is why it is an awesome time to be a Christian.
(Snobby professors don't like getting caught cheating 👇)
