Can The Former President Of Harvard Go To Jail For Plagiarism?

In most cases, plagiarism is a civil crime, not a criminal offense. However, copyrighting plagiarism has some stiff penalties. Hutcherson Law practice website states: “The infringer could be responsible for paying the actual dollar amount of damages and profits they obtained. Fees for each infringement can range from $750 to $150,000 - depending on whether the infringement was unintentional or willful. The infringer usually pays damages between $750 and $30,000 per work for unintentional infringement. For a willful infringement, the infringer could be responsible for damages up to $150,000 per work infringed.”

In some cases, the penalties can be much higher; JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series of books and movies, was sued for copyright infringement. In June 2009, the estate of Adrian Jacobs, a children's author who died in 1997, sued Rowling's publishers, Bloomsbury, for £500 million, accusing her of plagiarizing Jacobs’s work. The Rowling case took many years to conclude. In the end, Rowling won, but both sides spent significant money on lawyers.  

Another high-profile author accused of plagiarism was Doris Kearns Goodwin in her book, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. Lynne McTaggart claimed that Goodwin used an entire page of the story she wrote in her book. Goodwin argued that it was a mistake; she thought the page was her notes, and later versions of the book acknowledged the content from Ms. McTaggart. Ms. Goodwin also settled for an undisclosed amount of money.    

Getting back to Claudine Gay, many people are going over her published works to see if they can find whether other authors have had their work plagiarized by Gay. To the extent that she may have benefited financially from the plagiarized work, like getting the job as president of Harvard, the more likely it is that there will be lawsuits brought against her and perhaps Harvard. 

Let’s look at the story that reports she will receive close to $900,000 as a Harvard faculty member. I wonder how the faculty at Harvard will react when they, on average, earn $193,000 and know that Gay is getting a job making close to $900,000 a year. Many professors at Harvard have published honestly and have not plagiarized other people’s work.

In her resignation memo, she said, “Criticism of the way that she handled antisemitism on campus and charges that she plagiarized the work of other scholars was unfounded and even hateful.” The civil rights leader, Rev. Al Sharpton, hosted a protest outside the office of Harvard alumnus Bill Ackman on Thursday after Ackman criticized diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at Harvard following the resignation of the former university president, Claudine Gay.

What I find interesting is when Gay said that the charge of plagiarizing other people’s work was unfounded, 50 more examples of her unethical activity were presented. The search continues to see if there is more. In August 2022, “Harvard Says 125 Students May Have Cheated on a Final Exam". What message is former president Gay sending to this and future generations of Harvard students and perhaps many other institutions of higher learning across America about honesty and integrity in education? 

Some of the Harvard critics said that selecting Gay as president was more of an affirmative action decision in that they could check off two boxes: minority and female. With all the software available today to check for plagiarism, they could have taken a little more time to check her work.