House Republicans investigating plagiarism allegations against Harvard President Claudine Gay

WASHINGTON - House Republicans are expanding their investigation into Harvard President Claudine Gay following allegations of plagiarism surrounding her work.

It is the latest salvo in a Capitol Hill fight with college presidents, as the House Education and Workforce Committee ramps up backlash against Gay and other leaders who were grilled earlier this month about antisemitism on campus.

Rep. Virginia, Foxx, R-N.C., said in a letter Wednesday, first obtained by Bloomberg News, that the House will examine whether Harvard holds its own faculty to the same academic standards as its students.

“Our concern is that standards are not being applied consistently, resulting in different rules for different members of the academic community,” the letter says. 

“If a university is willing to look the other way and not hold faculty accountable for engaging in academically dishonest behavior, it cheapens its mission and the value of its education,” the letter continues. “Students must be evaluated fairly, under known standards – and have a right to see that faculty are, too.”

Earlier this month, the Harvard Board said in a statement that Gay will retain her spot as president following the antisemitism hearing. At the hearing, Gay was asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates her school’s code of conduct, and she said it depends on the context. 

The board also launched an independent review of her published work after learning about concerns around three articles she published in October. The review found “a few instances of inadequate citation.”

“While the analysis found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications,” the board said in the statement.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., one of the most forceful critics of college presidents who have come before Congress, has been unsatisfied with Harvard's response.

“There have been absolutely no updates to @Harvard’s code of conduct to condemn the calls for genocide of Jews and protect Jewish students on campus,” Stefanik wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “The only update to Harvard’s code of conduct is to allow plagiarists as president.”

Contributing: Nirvi Shah, Zachary Schermele, Karen Weintraub