Elise Stefanik Claims Credit For Harvard President’s Resignation While Acknowledging It Was Actually Over Her Plagiarism
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) joined Fox News anchors John Roberts and Gillian Turner to discuss the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay soon after the news broke on Tuesday. Stefanik made headlines last month by grilling Gay and two other university presidents over their handling of on-campus anti-Semitism. While the president of U Penn eventually resigned in the wake of the controversy, Gay and the president of MIT initially appeared likely to weather the storm.
“Do you think that your line of questioning is behind and ultimately what drove this ousting, or do you think it was more of a sort of straw that broke the camel’s back type situation?” Turner asked Stefanik.
“You know, this accountability would not have happened were it not for that congressional hearing,” Stefanik insisted, adding:
And I think what it forced was greater scrutiny of her position as the president of Harvard. And you have to remember, Gillian, she was selected as president of Harvard in a shorter search, you know, executive search than any other previous president. And they should have found out that there were 50 credible allegations of plagiarism.
And the fact that the Harvard Corporation we now know, knew about that before the congressional hearing and tried to cover it up and threaten media outlets to sue them is a disgrace. When you are a board of any university, you need to make sure that your president, your faculty and your students uphold the rigors of academic integrity.
And instead, they wanted to hide this from their students, from their community. So this accountability would not have happened were it not for the very clear moral questions at the hearing. But there were many people who spoke out, and really it was the over 1 billion views because of the pathetic testimony that led to this day.
Stefanik acknowledged that the investigation into Gay’s plagiarism preceded her hearing, but also managed to take credit for her eventual resignation — despite the hearing and the plagiarism allegations being unrelated.
After a back and forth about Harvard’s investigation into Gay’s plagiarism and Harvard’s approach to on-campus anti-Semitism, Roberts then asked, “So, Congresswoman, like Liz MaGill over at UPenn, even though she is stepping down as president, she is going to remain on the faculty. She was a professor of government and African-American studies prior to this. Should she be allowed?”
“I know that she’s tenured and getting rid of a tenured professor is a very difficult proposition. But given the allegations of plagiarism, should she be allowed to stay on the faculty?” Roberts added.
“No. And look at some of the student reporting in the Harvard Crimson. Students at Harvard are held to a standard that you can’t plagiarize. Obviously, that does not stand for academic rigor and academic integrity,” Stefanik replied, adding:
You can’t have members of the faculty where a great percentage of their body of work is plagiarized. There are over 50 credible accusations, and she doesn’t have a very robust body of work as it is compared to previous university presidents or faculty members. So, no, she should not stay on the faculty.
A student on Harvard’s honor society council published an op-ed in the Harvard Crimson over the weekend calling for Gay to resign, arguing that the school can not hold students to one standard and its leaders to another when it comes to plagiarism. The Harvard Crimson independently verified Gay’s plagiarism and was among the first outlets to raise the issue of a double standard on campus, which likely led to her resignation.
Watch the full clip above via Fox News.
