Elise Stefanik Blasts Harvard for Keeping ‘Plagiarist’ President: ‘Moral Failure’ at the ‘Highest Levels’

GOP House Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) blasted Harvard University for its decision to stand by President Claudine Gay on Tuesday, calling it a “moral failure.”

Gay’s job was seemingly jeopardized by her performance at a congressional hearing last week where she sparred with Stefanik over the university’s policies on anti-Semitism. University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down over the weekend after her answers at the hearing were widely condemned.

At the hearing, Stefanik repeatedly asked Gay if it was a violation of Harvard’s code of conduct to call for the genocide of the Jewish people, with Gay demurring that Harvard embraces “a commitment to free expression and give a wide berth to free expression, even of views that are objectionable” despite ranking dead last in a non-partisan group’s ranking of universities based on their policies and practices on free expression.

Gay’s answers resulted in widespread calls for her ouster that were compounded by allegations that Gay was guilty of plagiarism in her own scholarly work, including her dissertation.

But the Harvard Corporation announced in a statement on Tuesday morning that it was “reaffirm[ing]  our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University” after concluding that she “is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing.”

It also announced that an “independent review” had found that Gay had committed “no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct” even if there were “a few instances of inadequate citation.”

Stefanik was incensed by the university’s decision to keep Gay on.

“This is a moral failure of Harvard’s leadership and higher education leadership at the highest levels,” argued Stefanik at a press conference. “And the only change they have made to their code of conduct, where they failed to condemn calls for genocide of the Jewish people, the only update to the code of conduct is to allow a plagiarist as the president of Harvard.”

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