Harvard's Chief Diversity Officer Takes Massive Blow, Slapped with 40 Accusations of Plagiarism
Harvard University’s chief diversity and inclusion officer is facing accusations that she plagiarized the work of others dozens of times in two published works during her early academic career.
The accusations follow the ouster of former university President Claudine Gay, who stepped down amid the fallout of her refusal to call out anti-Semitism on her campus and complaints she plagiarized the work of others without attribution.
The Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday published a lengthy complaint against Harvard DEI officer Sherri Ann Charleston.
The complaint cited 40 incidents in which it appears Charleston failed to quote others during both her her 2009 dissertation and a 2014 peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Negro Education.
It is not currently clear who filed the complaint, but it stated Charleston’s dissertation “contains a lot of other scholars’ language verbatim without quotation marks.”
The lengthy document continued: “Parts of Charleston’s dissertation were published previously, word for word, by her advisor, Rebecca Scott, and others.
“Charleston will lift whole sentences and paragraphs from other scholars’ work without quotation marks, then add a correct reference somewhere in the footnote ending the long paragraph.”
The complainant laid out excerpts from each paper and then provided what appeared to be identical or near-identical paragraphs from other authors.
In one example of alleged plagiarism, Harvard’s head of DEI’s only notable edit to the alleged work of another writer was to shorten a subject’s middle name to an initial.
The complaint also noted that in many instances, it appeared that Charleston changed sentences and entire paragraphs simply by adding words and phrases such as “consequently,” “likewise” and “as such.”
According to the document, one person Charleston appeared to have lifted work from is her husband, LaVar Charleston.
The Free Beacon reported it appeared that in the 2014 study, Charleston used “sleight of hand” to pass off Mr. Charleston’s 2012 work as her own.
The published article had a co-author — Jerlando Jackson, the current dean of Michigan State University’s College of Education.
It is not clear if Jackson was aware he co-published a study in which much of the work appeared to belong to another individual.
BREAKING REPORT: ⚠️ Harvard’s diversity chief Sherri Ann Charleston hit with 40 PLAGERISM ALLEGATIONS following Claudine Gay scandal..
An anonymous report received by the Ivy League institution on Monday alleges that Sherri Ann Charleston committed plagiarism in at least 40… pic.twitter.com/2TuIZYudaL
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) January 30, 2024
Charleston has not commented on the plagiarism allegations.
NBC News, which categorized the Free Beacon’s journalism as a “campaign” against the Harvard DEI officer, reported it reached out to the school about the complaint against her.
The school declined to say if it will investigate Charleston but did provide the far-left network a statement on the accusations through school spokesman Jason Newton.
“Harvard is a community that embraces diversity in backgrounds, experiences and perspectives,” Newton said.
“Through her leadership as Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Sherri Ann Charleston has advanced our belief that everyone who comes to Harvard belongs at Harvard and, whether a student, faculty, staff member or researcher, should have the opportunity to succeed,” Newton added.
Gay stepped down as Harvard’s president last month and is the shortest-tenured president of the Ivy League school’s storied history.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
