Dr. Carol Swain was initially shocked to find out that former Harvard University President Claudine Gay had been accused of plagiarizing her work. “I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt,” she said in an interview with the Independent. Dr. Swain, a political scientist and educator from southwestern Virginia, began researching the allegations to form her own conclusions. “At that time, I was willing to entertain the possibility that it was just an accident… People would say, ‘What’s wrong with you? Aren’t you upset?’ No, I was not upset at that point.”
Her feelings quickly changed. After finding multiple instances in which she felt Gay had not only copied her language, but her research agenda, she became “very disturbed.” “For me, it was a lot more than just the two places where you have verbatim language that she took,” she said. “Her whole research agenda [and] her dissertation draws heavily on my work, and even how she frames the questions, yet there are no citations.”
“Lots of scholars, many of the ones that she cites, actually did studies around my conclusions in Black Faces, Black Interests. But what I found was, I would find her framing her research questions and things around my ideas, but not citing me,” Swain explained. “It would have been fine to me if she had actually included me in a literature review where she just mentioned my work, what I said, and either challenged it directly, affirmed it, or expanded it. That’s how you do research.”
Dr. Swain’s emotions turned to anger when it became clear that the Harvard Corporation would not fire Gay. On December 12th, the Corporation released a statement that they “unanimously stand in support of President Gay” and that they have “confidence that President Gay is the right leader to help our community heal.” Though Claudine Gay formally resigned not long after, both her resignation statement and that of the Corporation’s were not sufficient enough for Swain.
“Neither statement actually acknowledged the plagiarism. They didn’t apologize, and they tried to characterize everyone who questioned her academic integrity as being motivated by racism or right-wing extremism,” Swain said. “Nothing could be further from the truth for me because I care about the whole academic enterprise. I care about education K-12, as well as what’s happening in colleges and Universities. That’s what is motivating me to not let it go.”
Swain also expressed disappointment in the scholars who have defended Gay or dismissed the plagiarism allegations. “[They] have said, ‘It’s okay, that she plagiarized,’ ‘Oh, I don’t consider that plagiarism,’ ‘It’s fine with me.’ It’s not fine,” Swain said. “Harvard University at this time is trying to redefine plagiarism because what happened at Harvard will impact all the colleges and Universities and will also impact K-12. The American educational system is already in serious trouble.”
Now, Swain and her legal team want answers. In a document obtained by the Independent, Swain and her attorneys asked the Harvard Corporation and the Fellows of Harvard College to “provide clarification,” listing various questions.“What is ‘duplicative language,’ and how do verbatim copying and duplicative language differ?” “Under what circumstances would the retroactive insertion ‘of citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications’ be permissible in an academic setting?” “How many instances of duplicative language in a scholarly work constitute plagiarism? Would five instances of duplicative language constitute plagiarism? Would 50?”
Swain and her attorneys gave the Harvard Corporation until January 8th to respond. “Harvard needs to clarify what its stance is on plagiarism. Are they just going to change it for Claudine Gay or would they change it for students and faculty in the future? Does plagiarism mean anything in 2024 or 2023?” Swain asked. “We need answers to those questions because Harvard has been such a leading institution in the world,” she explained. “I think Harvard has harmed its faculty… I’m wondering how are they going to look their students in the eye when they encounter a student that takes a shortcut? How will they hold their students accountable? I don’t think they’ve thought it through.”
Swain has yet to speak to Gay about what happened. If she had the opportunity to, Swain said she’d first express that she’s sorry. “I take no pleasure in what she’s had to experience,” Swain said. “For myself, I feel like my life was upended December 10th, and so it’s not been very pleasant for me, and it’s really not been very pleasant for her. I wish she had done the right thing from the very beginning, and I believe that would have been to resign. She could have resigned, she could have issued an apology, and she could have done it for the sake of institution.”
“When she says she’s committed to excellence, and then you look at her academic record and whether you want to call it sloppiness or duplicative language, to have 50 incidents of duplicative language, that doesn’t show a commitment to excellence,” she said. “I felt like that I had been cheated and part of feeling cheated is in academia. Your statute depends on how many times people cite your work. If the profession or if particular scholars that are working in your area are not citing your work, then you’re not getting citations. And those citations matter.”
The situation has heavily impacted Swain, who expressed sadness and emotional difficulty over what has happened. “I wish it wasn’t happening but it is… Throughout my life, I have often been a person standing alone fighting, and that’s how I feel right now,” she explained. “There’s a lot of support from people saying ‘Go, Carol,’ and ‘We’re behind you,’ but it feels like I’m standing alone.”
Despite how the situation has affected her, Swain is motivated by her passion for education to continue in her fight. She comes from a family of 13 children born into poverty. Initially a high-school dropout to take care of her siblings, Swain went back to school, eventually graduating high school, attending community college, and receiving her Bachelor’s from Roanoke. Swain went on to receive her Master’s from Virginia Tech, Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and became a professor at prestigious universities such as Princeton and Vanderbilt. This background, she believes, is relevant to who she is today and why she refuses to give up defending her work. “I’m doing it not for Carol’s fight, but for American higher education, as well as K-12.”
Layla Chaaraoui ’26 (laylachaaraoui@college.harvard.edu) is the Managing Editor of the Independent.