The Gay Affair

Harvard, Plagiarism, and the Death of Academic Integrity

De: Carol M. Swain

Narrado por: Carol M. Swain, Chanel Rion

Claudine Gay's resignation on January 2, 2024, as Harvard University's first Black president, after only six months on the job, sent shock waves across the world. However, it did not shock anyone closely following her situation. Gay stepped down less than a month after giving disastrous testimony in Congress about her university's laissez-faire approach to protecting Jews on campus from rising expressions of antisemitism that followed Hamas's terrorist attacks on Israel. A double whammy occurred when it was reported that Gay had committed serial plagiarism involving her 1997 PhD dissertation completed while a student at Harvard and in other published works.

Among those whose work Gay pilfered was Dr. Carol Swain, author of the ground-breaking 1993 book Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress. In The Gay Affair, Dr. Swain offers a candid, compelling narrative about Gay, Harvard, academic plagiarism, and how she (Swain) was rebuffed and threatened financially when she attempted to seek a legal remedy from Harvard officials. For an insider's look into the world of elite institutional academia and how corners often get cut, Swain's The Gay Affair is a no-nonsense must-listen.

The Gay Affair is the 13th book Dr. Carol M. Swain has either authored or co-authored. In addition to Black Faces, Black Interests, her other notable works include The New White Nationalism in America, Be The People, Black Eye for America, and The Adversity of Diversity. Dr. Swain is a retired university professor who was tenured at Vanderbilt and Princeton Universities. She resides in Nashville, Tennessee.

©2025 Be the People Books (P)2025 Be the People Books

Corruption exist in even the most high places.

One would never imagine a Harvard president to have been involved in such duplicitous behavior for purposes of achieving hi Office how they went about doing this is probably been done 1000 times before throughout the country and I often wonder how many other wise deserving people were prevented from achieving their goals because of this type of academic corruption are. who’s running the show . Nothing seems to be on the level anymore. It’s a shame hard-working people canceled it because they don’t check the boxes.

Good summary on the Harvard scandal and it's impact on one of the chief victims

it was nice to get some behind the scenes info on what was going on with the potential lawsuit and why they ended up not happening. It was also great to hear some chronological explanations for where the plagerized ideas originally came from and why the lack of credit is so damning. Also, it was nice to hear Dr. Swain still in good spirits, despite the whole affair.

I wished it was a little longer and had some of the thoughts of the other victims, but maybe it was out of the scope of Swain's time restraints or design for the project.

Enlightening!

For one that knew of the situation at Harvard and Ms Gay’s cause for stepping down, the details around this really put the seriousness of this ‘drama’ in to perspective, as not realised earlier. The author gives a good description and provides the insight the media missed or even suppressed at the time. Very interesting and enlightening indeed. Recommended.