Plagiarism: "A New Conservative Weapon?"

The far-left Associated Press covered itself in corruption this week with the claim that disgraced Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation “highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism.”

AP is telling the public that "plagiarism" is not a sin---uncovering the sin is the sin.

No wonder American secular education is in such decline.

Be informed, not misled.

The Associated Press published this: 

WASHINGTON (AP) — American higher education has long viewed plagiarism as a cardinal sin. Accusations of academic dishonesty have ruined the careers of faculty and undergraduates alike.

The latest target is Harvard President Claudine Gay, who resigned Tuesday. In her case, the outrage came not from her academic peers but her political foes, led by conservatives who put her career under intense scrutiny.

Reviews by Harvard found multiple shortcomings in Gay’s academic citations, including several instances of “ duplicative language.” The university concluded the errors “were not considered intentional or reckless” and didn’t rise to misconduct. But the allegations continued, with new ones as recently as Monday.

Conservatives zeroed in on Gay amid backlash over her congressional testimony about antisemitism on campus. Her detractors charged that Gay — who has a Ph.D. in government, was a professor at Harvard and Stanford and headed Harvard’s largest division before being promoted — got the top job in large part because she is a Black woman.

Many conservatives also believe that her activism on behalf of the LGBTQ+ agenda also helped her get the job.

AP blames journalist Chris Rufo for Gay's resignation. 

Harvard president's resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism https://t.co/GiVkT3LgUo

— The Associated Press (@AP) January 3, 2024

They said, "Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who helped orchestrate the effort against Gay, celebrated her departure as a win in his campaign against elite institutions of higher education. On X, formerly Twitter, he wrote “SCALPED,” as if Gay was a trophy of violence, invoking a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans and also used by some tribes against their enemies."

John Nolte writes, "Let’s back up just a moment to take a good, long, objective look at what we are talking about."

The story is that “conservatives” used plagiarism as a “weapon” against Gay, not about her wrongdoing.

The New York Times says she plagiarized at least 47 times in her doctoral dissertation.

The Washington Free Beacon says, "Seven of Gay’s 17 published works have already been impacted by the scandal, but the new charges, which have not been previously reported, extend into an eighth: In a 2001 article, Gay lifts nearly half a page of material verbatim from another scholar, David Canon, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin."

Nolte concludes, "In her already unimpressive scholastic career, Claudine Gay committed so much plagiarism that the first black woman to hold the top job at Harvard was forced to resign. The fact that this woman is Claudine Gay is immaterial. Do you have any idea how much plagiarism has to be committed before a black woman loses her job as the first black woman of anything?"

Rather than summarize his statements, this is what best-selling author John Nolte had to say about the fiasco:

It’s like asking how many suitcases full of women’s clothes does a Biden administration’s transvestite nuclear official have to steal before he’s fired.

By any objective standard, Gay had no business rising to Harvard’s presidency and certainly had no business remaining in that spot. She legitimized calling for the extermination of Jews and belligerently violated her own school’s code of conduct regarding plagiarism with a sense of entitlement that only unwound after her sins were finally uncovered.

But we no longer live in a world where merit, honesty, and character matter. We live in a world where (the correct) identity trumps all, where a high-profile media outlet like the AP rages against those who uncovered a fraud rather than rage against the fraud.

“The downfall of Harvard’s president has elevated the threat of unearthing plagiarism, a cardinal sin in academia, as a possible new weapon in conservative attacks on higher education,” writes AP education reporters Binkley and Balingit, as though the unearthing is the cardinal sin and not the sin itself.

Mealsothinks someone at the AP is awfully worried about the amount of plagiarism happening in higher education:

[According to AP] The plagiarism allegations came not from her academic peers but her political foes, led by conservatives who sought to oust Gay and put her career under intense scrutiny in hopes of finding a fatal flaw. Her detractors charged that Gay — who has a Ph.D. in government, was a professor at Harvard and Stanford and headed Harvard’s largest division before being promoted — got the top job in large part because she is a Black woman.

But this is where we’re at as a culture… It doesn’t matter that Claudine Gay will tolerate (within a certain “context”) calling for the genocide of Jews on her campus. It doesn’t matter that she brazenly cheated her way into the top spot. It doesn’t even matter that the American Indians practiced scalping. Among our rotting and morally broken establishment, humanity, integrity, decency, and truth mean nothing. Identity is all that matters — you know, as long as you hold the correct identity along with the correct leftist beliefs. Ask Carol Swain how far identity gets you at Harvard when you think for yourself.

It isn’t only the AP. All across the corporate media, this madness is playing out in a concerted effort to gaslight the public into believing it is wrong to uncover the wrongdoing of the protected class.

And he said this:

"Here’s some free advice to the AP: If you don’t want normal people to believe certain people got the top job based only on their identity, stop promoting the idea that certain people should get the top job based only on their identity."

Nolte says, "My favorite part of these reporters’ Tantrum of Cope is the anti-science claim the well-known American Indian practice of 'scalping' was a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who sought to eradicate Native Americans.”

"One of the fake AP journalists behind this entertaining piece of Emotional Breakdown seems to have some real issues with whitey." 

Takeaway

Ironically, Harvard University is known as America's oldest learning institution, founded in 1636. At its inception, this university's name was "New College," its purpose was mainly to educate clergy. In 1639, the school's name became Harvard University, named for the Rev. John Harvard, a strong benefactor to the school and its mission.

And consider Harvard's original mission statement: “Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.”

Only 80 years after its founding, a group of New England pastors sensed Harvard had drifted too far from its founding beliefs.  Concerned by the secularization at Harvard, they approached a wealthy philanthropist who shared their concerns. This man, Elihu Yale, financed their efforts in 1718, and they called the college Yale University. Yale's motto was not just Veritas (truth) like Harvard, but Lux et Veritas (light and truth)

Now Harvard wallows in the mire of wokeism, rejecting both "light" and "truth."

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.