The fallout at Harvard University over Claudine Gay’s recent resignation has led to the accusation of plagiarism in Neri Oxman’s dissertation. Business Insider made the allegations public today afternoon.
The tenured professor at MIT has been Oxman since 2017, and she completed her doctoral dissertation there in 2010. Business Insider reports that several paragraphs in Oxman’s dissertation appear to be plagiarized, as they contain direct quotations from authoritative sources without enclosing commas.
The 2010 dissertation of Oxman, according to media reports, allegedly contained plagiarized text from 1998 by two Israeli scholars—Steve Winer and H. Daniel Wagner—in her 2010 dissertation. The dissertation of Oxman allegedly repurposed text from two separate pieces by NYU historian Peder Anker, published in 1995 and 2006. A 1998 book by German physicist Claus Mattheck is accused of being plagiarized by her.
Business Insider reported that Oxman copied one paragraph from Mattheck without any quotation or attribution. According to the parameters outlined in the MIT Handbook, such instances are considered plagiarism. Then, Neri Oxman weighed in on the allegations via social media.
The hardline stance against plagiarism Oxman’s husband Bill Ackman has taken in recent weeks against similar academic missteps regarding former Harvard University president Claudine Gay is ironic.
The congressional hearing on December 5, 2023, about anti-Semitism at Harvard was followed by conservative media pundits joining forces with Ackman, a major donor to Harvard, to call for Gay’s resignation.
Right-wing journalists like Chris Brunet, Aaron Sibarium, and Christopher Rufo dug up claims that Claudine Gay plagiarized parts of her PhD dissertation from 2010. The Free Beacon and Aaron Sibarium used the allegations to stir up animosity toward Harvard’s first Black president.
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