The downfall of Harvard’s president has elevated allegations of plagiarism as a possible new weapon in conservative attacks on higher education. President Claudine Gay’s resignation Tuesday followed weeks of mounting accusations that she lifted language from other scholars in her doctoral dissertation and journal articles. The allegations surfaced amid backlash over her congressional testimony about antisemitism on campus. The plagiarism claims came not from her academic peers but her political foes, part of a conservative effort to remake higher education, which has often been seen as a bastion of liberalism.
