Dr. Carol M. Swain joined Thursday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss the latest developments surrounding her battle with Harvard University regarding its former president’s alleged plagiarism of her and other scholars’ work as well as the overall decline of the university as it attempts to implement a new “standard.”
In December 2023, writer and activist Christopher Rufo accused then-Harvard University President Claudine Gay of plagiarizing “multiple sections” of Swain’s Ph.D. thesis from 1997.
In response, Swain has since hired an attorney and reached out to Harvard through a letter, requesting answers to many questions surrounding the university’s plagiarism policy and its defense of Gay’s work.
During Thursday’s interview with Leahy, Swain said that she has yet to receive a response from the university.
“[The letter] was sent on January 3rd, and they had until the 8th to respond, it’s called a demand letter. We never heard from them,” Swain said.
Leahy, who graduated from Harvard in 1977, noted that the university had “very clear standards” when it came to plagiarism when he was a student.
“When I did papers, there were very clear standards of citations. If you quoted somebody, you had to put it in quotes, and you had to put a footnote [of] where it came from. If you didn’t do that, they didn’t say it was ‘duplicative language,’ they said it was plagiarism, and you would be brought up before the Honor Council, and they’d kick you out if they found you guilty. That was back between 1973 and 1977,” Leahy explained.
Swain agreed with Leahy, noting how Harvard’s plagiarism policy back then was the “standard,” however, she added that the university is now “trying to create a whole new standard” in regards to branding plagiarism as what Leahy called “duplicative language.”
“Well, I mean, I finished my dissertation in 1989 and I became a professor in 1990 and that was the standard. It was the standard when I was at Vanderbilt. That has been the standard. Harvard University is trying to create a whole new standard and they seem to have quite a few plagiarists on their faculty,” Swain said.
Swain later noted the decline of the university, saying, “You no longer have to be smart to go to Harvard. You can be dumb as rocks and go to Harvard and become a university professor and make nine hundred thousand dollars a year, right?”
Swain went on by wishing Harvard “well,” adding she hopes the university is able to “turn things around.”
In regards to her fight with the university about Gay’s plagiarism, Swain said, “It’s not about me – it’s about academic integrity and if a university education is going to mean something.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Carol Swain” by Carol Swain.
