Plagiarize or Perish

Harvard has an academic problem, and it’s not grade inflation.

Harvard students are cheating at disturbing rates. While few of them would be likely to publicly admit that characterization of themselves, they tend to agree with this assessment of their peers. In 2024, the graduating class believed most of their peers were cheaters. They’re not far off: 47 percent of them admitted to cheating.

Some may ascribe this phenomenon to modern students’ scholastic disengagement or use of artificial intelligence. But plagiarism and other forms of academic misconduct have been happening all too often at Harvard for far longer than the advent of these issues. So the problem isn’t new technology or “kids these days.” Instead, academic dishonesty at elite universities like Harvard can be explained by the timeless pursuit of success at all costs.

To see the proof, we only need to look at the faculty and administrators.

Let’s get the obvious example out of the way: a few years ago, the president of one of the top educational institutions in the world resigned following scrutiny of their research.

While the irony is banal at this point, what remains shocking is that description matches two separate events that occurred within just six months of each other. First, Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned, his work found to fall “below customary standards of scientific rigor,” and then Harvard President Claudine Gay followed suit after, inter alia, accusations of plagiarism.

And not too long ago, the president of the University of South Carolina and the president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges also had to resign amid allegations of plagiarism. (This was pointed out by conservative activist Christopher F. Rufo when he first called for Gay’s resignation. Coincidentally, Neri Oxman — wife of Bill A. Ackman ’88, another one of Gay’s critics — admitted to lifting passages in her dissertation.)

It’s worrisome that the foremost leaders of academic institutions may not uphold the same standards they represent, but perhaps it would offer some solace if this problem were isolated at the top. Unfortunately, it’s not.

Harvard has seen a surfeit of plagiarism and research misconduct accusations, spanning across years and schools. At Harvard Law School, prominent professors Laurence H. Tribe ’62 and Charles J. Ogletree failed to properly credit work and lifted text, respectively. Similarly, Alan M. Dershowitz faced allegations of plagiarism. Harvard even had a member of its Board of Overseers — the second-highest governing body of the University — admit to using material without attribution.

But misconduct isn’t limited to lawyers, Overseers, and university presidents. Last year, four researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute were accused of falsifying data. Less than a month later, Harvard Medical School neuroscientist Khalid Shah was also accused of falsifying data and plagiarizing images.

The trend of elite academic misconduct reached something of a zenith when Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino — who studies honesty and ethical behavior, of all things — became the first Harvard faculty member since at least the 1940s known to have their tenure revoked, due to allegations of data fraud.

The contradictions should not be lost on us: Someone who studies honesty was fired for lying. The heads of academic institutions resigned because of improper academic conduct. Harvard is supposed to be a great university — why is this happening?

Harvard affiliates want success too much.

I’m not the first person to suggest this. Allow me to take (not plagiarize) a page from William Deresiewicz’s book, “Excellent Sheep,” which proposes that students who strive to and then attend elite institutions are conditioned to desire stereotypical success above all else.

Many Harvard professors and administrators attended Harvard or other elite universities themselves. Besides, simply being employed by such an institution seems like enough to impose the same type of pressure — just consider the phrase “publish or perish.”

Consequently, people cut corners, plagiarize, or even fabricate evidence so that they can claim the next big breakthrough. When plagiarism and misconduct occur at institutions like ours, they are seemingly motivated by an all-consuming desire for success — or at least, the prioritization of oneself over the greater good.

After all, plagiarism and fraud are essentially saying that one cares less about the truth and more about getting credit for having intellectually contributed. It is prioritizing oneself over everyone else.

One might argue that academic dishonesty occurs everywhere, not just at success-obsessed places like Harvard. However, the problem is not about whether Harvard’s misconduct is unique; the problem is that it exists, let alone at this extent.

Harvard is, by some accounts, the best university in the world. At the very least, it produces more academic research than any other in the world. And a small handful of elite institutions — Harvard especially — are responsible for producing a disproportionate percentage of the world’s top leaders.

With great power comes great responsibility. Harvard’s community needs to hold itself to a higher standard — not just because academic misconduct reflects poorly on the University, but because there are genuine consequences for the greater world. The plagiarizing students of today will turn into the data-forging professors of tomorrow. Perhaps they already have.

We need to inspire a commitment to academic integrity in students — and help them realize a greater good than their personal success.

Matthew R. Tobin ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a double concentrator in Social Studies and Economics in Winthrop House.