Harvard’s Plagiarism Problem Multiplies

Harvard has a plagiarism problem. At the beginning of the year, Claudine Gay resigned as university president following a plagiarism scandal. Weeks later, the Washington Free Beacon published a report indicating that Harvard’s chief diversity officer, Sherri Ann Charleston, apparently plagiarized passages in multiple academic papers.

Now allegations have emerged that another Harvard DEI administrator, Shirley Greene, of Harvard Extension School, plagiarized more than 40 passages of her 2008 dissertation, “Converging Frameworks: Examining the Impact of Diversity-Related College Experiences on Racial/Ethnic Identity Development.” According to the Harvard directory, Greene is a Title IX coordinator affiliated with the Office for Gender Equity. She has worked to advance “Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging,” and hosted a panel on “The Past, Present, and Future of Juneteenth” in conjunction with the DEI department. (Harvard did not respond to an emailed request for comment.)

The Harvard Crimson previously reported on the allegations against Greene, which a whistleblower lodged anonymously. I have obtained the full complaint, which paints a much more damning indictment of Greene’s scholarship than the student newspaper had let on. Seen in its entirety, the complaint raises serious questions about Greene’s scholarship and academic integrity.

In the most serious instance, Greene lifts directly from Janelle Lee Woo’s 2004 dissertation, “Chinese American Female Identity.” In two significant sections, Greene copied words, phrases, passages, and almost entire paragraphs verbatim, without proper attribution or quotation. She also copies most of an entire table on “Racial/Ethnic Identity Development Models,” a foundational concept in the paper, without acknowledging the source.

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The complaint, which has been sent to Harvard’s research-integrity officials, features more than three dozen other examples of Greene allegedly lifting language from other scholars, without proper attribution or quotations. For another typical example, we can compare a passage from Anthony Antonio’s paper, “Developing Leadership Skills for Diversity,” with Greene’s dissertation.

Here is Antonio’s original text:

Astin found that independent of students’ entering characteristics and different types of college environments, frequent interracial interaction in college was associated with increases in cultural awareness, commitment to racial understanding, commitment to cleaning up the environment, and higher levels of academic development (critical thinking skills, analytical skills, general and specific knowledge, and writing skills) and satisfaction with college.

Compare this with Greene’s dissertation, which copies the entire paragraph verbatim, adds the word “ethnic,” and, though it cites the source, does not include quotation marks. {snip}

Astin found that independent of students’ entering characteristics and different types of college environments, frequent interracial interaction in college was associated with increases in cultural awareness, commitment to racial/ethnic understanding, commitment to cleaning up the environment, and higher levels of academic development (critical thinking skills, analytical skills, general and specific knowledge, and writing skills) and satisfaction with college.

In total, the complaint identifies dozens of such passages in Greene’s dissertation, ranging from minor infringements to what appears to be outright theft of concepts and language. {snip}

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