CNN’s Egan: Some Charges of ‘Sloppy Attribution’ Against Harvard Pres. Were from ‘Right-Wing Activists’ Playing Politics

On Tuesday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” CNN Reporter Matt Egan stated that some of the initial plagiarism allegations against outgoing Harvard President Claudine Gay “came from activists, not activists who were fired up about academic citation, it was really right-wing activists who feel that a lot of these Ivy League presidents are too liberal.” And that the charges against Gay were “more like copying other people’s writings without attribution” and “more sloppy attribution than stealing anyone’s ideas.”

Egan said, “Claudine Gay is under enormous pressure here. There [have] been so many things that have gone wrong in just the last few months. The initial response to the October 7 attack was criticized, even by Harvard officials. We also know that the testimony before Congress last month was widely criticized as well. That was viewed as a disaster. Now, Gay did apologize, but the criticism continued. Lawmakers have looked into this issue. And, at the same time, we also had these plagiarism allegations that have swirled around Claudine Gay.”

He added that Gay “has had to issue corrections, multiple corrections. Now, we should note that Claudine Gay has not been accused of stealing anyone’s ideas in any of her writings. She’s been accused of sort — of more like copying other people’s writings without attribution. So, it’s been more sloppy attribution than stealing anyone’s ideas. But, nonetheless, you put all of that together and you throw on top the political pressure and also the pressure from donors…it seems as though it’s been more than Claudine Gay’s presidency could survive.”

Co-host Brianna Keilar stated, “There [were] also the political overtones here, Matt, which is that Congress, the House of Representatives, Republican oversight, had decided to join in investigating this, which was rather unusual, and added sort of another tension to this discussion over her tenure.”

Egan responded, “Absolutely, Brianna. It is worth noting that this has all become so politicized, like a lot of things in society, this has been caught up by politics. And even the plagiarism allegations, some of those initial allegations around plagiarism, those really came from activists, not activists who were fired up about academic citation, it was really right-wing activists who feel that a lot of these Ivy League presidents are too liberal. And so, that’s where some of this initial concern about her academic writing came from.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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