Harvard's embattled president is facing more questions about her academic performance after a statistics expert questioned the data used in a report that helped her win a job at Stanford.
Claudine Gay, who took over as president in July, has been at the center of a firestorm since the October 7 Hamas attacks. She appeared unable to condemn students who justified terrorist violence and had no time to speak out against anti-Semitism on campus.
Her academic record has been thrust into the spotlight with allegations of plagiarism — and on Tuesday, a data scientist questioned her analytical methods. A journalist then revealed that she had refused to share her data, which caused a stir in the scientific community.
Jonatan Pallesen, a Copenhagen-based data scientist who works for the Confederation of Danish Industry, tweeted that he had examined her use of data in her doctoral thesis and a 2001 American Political Science Review (APSR) article.
The 2001 article was one of four peer-reviewed political science articles that secured her a position at Stanford in 2005.
Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, won a position at Stanford University in 2002 thanks to four peer-reviewed papers. One of them was now questioned
Gay had a bachelor's degree in economics from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in government at Harvard before returning to Stanford to teach.
In 2006, she joined the Harvard faculty as a professor of government and African and African American studies. In 2018, she became dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Pallesen found that the 2001 paper was misleading and incomplete.
“I'm not a political scientist, but I'm thinking about the whole approach of their study,” he said.
Christopher Brunet, an editor at The American Conservative, then addressed Pallesen's concerns in “The Dossier,” noting that Gay had refused to share the data that influenced her conclusions.
Two professors – Michael C. Herron, professor of quantitative social sciences at Dartmouth, and Kenneth W. Shotts, professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business – stated at a 2002 conference of the Society for Political Methodology that they supported their findings wouldn't share data or code with them.
“However, we were unable to verify Gay's results because she did not want to provide us with her data set (personal communication with Claudine Gay, 2002),” they noted.
However, Brunet finds her criticism of Gay has been removed from the site.
Brunet said Gay's refusal to share her information was “shameful.”
Herron, the professor who criticized her in 2002, told the New York Post that Gay was just one person they looked to when discussing data analysis.
Gay studied at Stanford (pictured) and then taught at the university before moving to Harvard in 2006
Also on Tuesday, it was revealed that two Harvard board members and four faculty members held a private dinner where they reportedly discussed a culture of “self-censorship” on campus amid outrage over the school's response to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Conflict increased.
The four professors in attendance Tuesday said they did not address the Ivy League institution's issue — Gay's uncertain future as president — despite reports claiming the opposite.
Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk Gersen, psychology professor Steven A. Pinker, lecturer Flynn J. Cratty and former Harvard Medical School dean Jeffrey S. Flier were there, along with board members Tracy Palandjian and Paul J. Finnegan present.
The dinner at Bar Enza in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was first reported by The New York Times – and it sparked rumors that Palandjian and Finnegan might be at odds with the Harvard Corporation's decision to stand by the embattled president.
Gay, who took office in July this year, sparked outrage during a congressional hearing when she said it depended on the context whether calls for genocide against Harvard's Jews constituted harassment and violated the rules.
Two Harvard board members and four faculty members held a private dinner where they reportedly discussed a culture of “self-censorship” on campus. According to the professors, they did not discuss the elephant in the room – Claudine Gay's term as president. (Pictured: Claudine Gay)
The dinner at Bar Enza in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was first reported by The New York Times – and it sparked rumors that Tracy Palandjian (left) and Paul J. Finnegan (right) were involved with the Harvard Corporation's decision to be the beleaguered to stand by, could get out of control President
According to the Times, Palandjian said that “replacing the university president may not go far enough to get Harvard back on track” — but each of the professors present at the dinner told the Harvard Crimson that the issue wasn't even brought up had come.
Pinker told the Crimson he had “no recollection of Palandjian saying she supported Gay’s resignation.”
“That would have been a bombshell that I couldn’t possibly have forgotten,” he said.
Cratty described the dinner as “a very open and friendly conversation about how Harvard can grow in its commitment to civil discourse and diversity of thought.”
“We have not discussed or requested the removal of President Gay,” he added.
According to the Times, Palandjian also said that Harvard needed “generational change” — but Gersen wrote in a statement to The Crimson that she did not “specifically recall Tracy Palandjian using the language of 'generational change' at Harvard.”
“But if she did, it wouldn't be about potentially replacing the president or members of the company because that wasn't the conversation we were having,” Gersen said.
Harvard spokesman Jonathan L. Swain said the dinner was “a constructive and positive conversation about the importance of academic freedom, civil discourse and intellectual diversity.”
“The discussion about 'generational change' took place in this context; “Addressing such a vital and complex societal problem would not happen overnight but would take time,” Swain said. “It had nothing to do with anyone at Harvard.”
Meanwhile, Flier previously told the Times and the Wall Street Journal that he was urging Palandjian and Finnegan to do more to address the anti-Semitic furor threatening to engulf the Ivy League school.
“You have to be more open here,” Flier recalled telling executives when he spoke to The New York Times. “When people say the university makes mistakes, they mean you!”
Finnegan and Palandjian did not immediately respond to 's requests for comment.
Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokeswoman for The New York Times, wrote in a statement that the publication “is confident in the accuracy of our reporting and stands by the story.”