THOMAS A. CLARE, P.C.

DAVID SILLERS

(202) (202)
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
(202)
www.clarelocke.com

October 27, 2023

Via Email Confidential

Not for Publication or Attribution

Re: Claudine Gay and Harvard University

Dear Laura and Adam,
We are defamation counsel to Harvard University and Claudine Gay, the President of
Harvard University.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Isabel Vincent, an investigative reporter for The New York Post,
notified Harvard that she is preparing for publication a proposed article that would include highly
inflammatory and damaging allegations, derived from “complaints” purportedly “received” by The
Post from some unidentified source, that “some” of President Gay’s scholarly work “may have been
plagiarized from other academics.”1
Let me be perfectly clear so there is no misunderstanding of my clients’ position in any future
legal proceeding made necessary by the publication of these defamatory falsehoods. These
allegations of plagiarism are demonstrably false. The excerpts that Ms. Vincent provided do not
support a finding of plagiarism — and the conclusion she proffers rests on a fatally flawed

1
The relevant works are Gay, Claudine, Between Black and White: The Complexity of Brazilian Race
Relations. Origins. 1(4).1993; Gay, Claudine, Moving to Opportunity: The Political Effects of a Housing
Mobility Experiment. Urban Affairs Review 48(2), 2012; and Gay, Claudine, A Room for One’s Own?
The Partisan Allocation of Affordable Housing. Urban Affairs Review 53(1), 2017.
understanding of what “plagiarism” is (and is not) in scholarly work performed in academic journals
and settings. If these illegitimate “complaints” of plagiarism from unidentified sources are credited
by the The Post and published, against the weight of the overwhelming evidence and firsthand
testimony presented in this letter (including unequivocal statements from the supposed “victims”),
that publication will subject the paper — and each of the individuals involved in the decision to
publish — to legal liability for defamation. Harvard and President Gay stand together in their
determination that the proposed article must not be published.
I. The “Complaints” Reflect A Fatal Misunderstanding of Academic Plagiarism.
The allegation of “plagiarism” in Ms. Vincent’s inquiry is based on a fundamental
misunderstanding of what plagiarism is — and how it does (and does not) apply in scholarly work
performed in academic settings. Plagiarism has a specific definition that requires more than the
mere use of similar phrases or descriptors. Plagiarism in academia is defined by reference to federal
regulations, which say plagiarism is “the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results,
or words without giving appropriate credit.”2 Similarly, the Office of Research Integrity defines
plagiarism as the “theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed
textual copying of author’s work.” 3 Conversely, plagiarism is not “the limited use of identical or
nearly-identical phrases which describe a commonly-used methodology or previous research” because
such use is not “substantially misleading to the reader or of great significance.”4
The excerpts referenced in The Post’s inquiry are not plagiarism because, among many other
reasons, the so-called “plagiarized” works are both cited and properly credited. For instance, in
Example 8, both President Gay and the prior work cite “Bloom 1984” for the development of a
method to weigh treatment impact. In Example 12, both President Gay and the prior work explicitly
cite “Schwartz 2010” for the proposition that as “QCT coverage increases” so does “the ability of
developers to take advantage of the larger tax credit.” There is nothing remarkable or surprising that
two works explicitly cite the same third party for the same concept. That is not plagiarism.
Moreover, many of the examples cited by The Post describe historical events or concepts that
are recognized as common in the relevant field. In Example 26, both President Gay and the prior
work describe how Brazilians came to “question publicly” the idea of “racial democracy.” That
concept is commonly and widely described in the relevant academic field and is no more
“plagiarism” than The Daily News and The New York Post each stating that Donald Trump “disputed
the 2020 presidential election.”
Similarly obvious flaws arise in many examples which are merely shared descriptions of
technical concepts developed by third parties — in Example 6, President Gay is describing a “partisan

2
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-42/chapter-I/subchapter-H/part-93?toc=1
https://research.fas.harvard.edu/policies/procedures-responding-allegations-misconduct-research
3
https://ori.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/vol3 no1.pdf, at 5.
4
Id. at 6.

2
allocation argument” (also known as the “majoritarian argument”) which is (unsurprisingly)
described by others in the field in similar terms. 5 This is not plagiarism.
Additionally, certain of the “examples” of purported plagiarism actually dispute the
conclusion of the prior work. A glaring example is that President Gay’s piece “Between Black and
White” explains why she believes that the Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU) was a failure before
its reforms, whereas the prior work cited by The Post “Black Political Protest in Sao Paulo” lauds the
MNU’s success. 6 Here, where President Gay is disputing the conclusion presented from a prior
work, it is axiomatic that she has not misappropriated the idea of another scholar. And it is most
certainly not plagiarism.
II. The Alleged “Victims” Expressly Reject the Notion That the Prior Works Were
Plagiarized.
In an extraordinary rebuke of The Post’s preferred conclusion, many of the authors whose
work was allegedly plagiarized have come forward to expressly reject the false conclusions proffered
by The Post. These denials are far more well-informed than the facile comparison of similar phrases,
because they are the product of a review of the entirety of both the relevant works as well as grounded
upon decades of work in academia. It is important to note that under federal regulations and
Harvard policy, plagiarism exists only when the alleged failure to attribute a source constitutes a
“significant departure from accepted practices of the relevant research community.” 7 Below, we
summarize and then reprint the statements of fourteen authors responsible for five of the prior
works cited by The Post, all scholars who are members of the relevant research community and all of
whom unequivocally refute the claim of plagiarism.
A. “What Can We Learn about Neighborhood Effects from the Moving to Opportunity
Experiment?” 8
The seven co-authors of the paper have unequivocally stated that President Gay did not
plagiarize their work; to the contrary, they state that President Gay’s “paper is an important original
scientific contribution.” The full statement is below:
I have been in touch with six of my coauthors on the Moving to Opportunity (MTO)
papers, and none of us believe that Professor Gay plagiarized our work. Given that
she used the same statistical techniques that we did and studied the same

5
Other examples of this flaw include Example 2, Example 3, Example 5, Example 6, Example 8,
Example 9, Example 10, Example 11, Example 12, Example 15, Example 17, Example 18, Example
19, Example 21, Example 22, Example 23, Example 24, Example 25, and Example 26.
6
NY Post Inquiry Example 2.
7
https://research.fas.harvard.edu/policies/procedures-responding-allegations-misconduct-research
8
Ludwig, Jens, Jeffrey B. Liebman, Jeffrey R. Kling, Greg J. Duncan, Lawrence F. Katz, Ronald C.
Kessler and Lisa Sanbonmatsu. “What Can We Learn about Neighborhood Effects from the Moving
to Opportunity Experiment?” American Journal of Sociology 114 (1), 2008.

3
 government program, it is not surprising that she used similar language in a handful
of places in her paper. Her MTO paper studies the impact of residential mobility
on political participation, a topic we did not address in our work. Professor Gay’s
paper is an important original scientific contribution.
That statement is attached as Exhibit A.
B. “Moving to Opportunity Interim Impacts Evaluation.”
Professor Jeffrey Liebman, on behalf of himself and four of his co-authors, re-reviewed both
his prior work and President Gay’s work, found no plagiarism, and remarked that it “stood out to
me as I reread these papers [] how original President Gay’s contribution was.” He also pointed
out the same methodological errors found in The Post’s examples, which are explained above. The
full statement is below:
I am one of the authors of the Moving to Opportunity Interim Impacts Evaluation.
Yesterday, I carefully reread our paper and President Gay’s paper. I do not see any
signs of plagiarism. I also checked in with four of my coauthors, and none of them
has any concerns either.
More fundamentally, when we do scientific writing, we use the technical terms for
things. So, it is not surprising when two researchers describing the same statistical
procedure or the same government program use similar language. Moreover, the
evaluation of the MTO demonstration was a very large undertaking that involved
many different researchers from different disciplines collaborating in different
configurations over a twenty-year period. In each paper that came out of the MTO
research, the authors needed to repeat the basic description of the program and of
the statistical techniques that the papers all had in common. As the MTO research
unfolded, lots of us contributed to developing and refining the language that we
used for these basic descriptions, and all of us, including President Gay, had the
right to use and adapt this common language – regardless of what configuration of
authors was involved in the particular publication.
The other thing that stood out to me as I reread these papers is how original
President Gay’s contribution was. In studying the impact of neighborhood moves
on political participation, she not only identified a specific downside to these
moves, she also illuminated the more fundamental processes through which
residential mobility can lead to a loss of social ties.
The full statement is attached as Exhibit B.
C. “Party Control of State Government and the Distribution of Public Expenditures.”
Professor Stephen Ansolabehere both read President Gay’s article before it was published
and re-read it as response to The Post’s inquiry, and each time came to the firm conclusion that there
was “no evidence of plagiarism .” He also points out The Post’s methodological errors in believing
this to be plagiarism:

4
 I read Claudine Gays’ papers before they were published as they are on questions
that interest me. At the time nothing struck me as unusual. Reading these passages
again, I do not see anything alarming. These are generic expressions and wordings
frequently used in social science writing. Some of the language in question is
simply restating specific hypotheses or claims of others and there is no other way
to put it. I see no evidence of plagiarism.
His statement is attached as Exhibit C.
D. “Black Political Protest in Sao Paulo, 1888-1988” and “Blacks and Whites in Sao
Paulo, Brazil, 1888-1988.”
The two works above by Professor George Reid Andrews are the source of four purported
examples cited by The Post, which come from a piece that President Gay wrote when she was a first-
year graduate student. On Monday, October 23, Professor Andrews responded to a Post reporter’s
inquiry, refuting the claim of plagiarism of his two works. We note this occurred before The Post
brought the allegation to Harvard and President Gay. He wrote:
I have looked through the texts that you sent me. It appears that she did borrow a
few of my phrases, but this happens fairly often in academic writing and for me
does not rise to the level of plagiarism. I am glad she read my work, learned from
it, and recommended it to her readers (Suggestions for Further Reading).
His statement is attached as Exhibit D.
Also of note, the magazine that carried the relevant article by President Gay used only an
abridged version of her article with no citations, consistent with the magazine’s formatting
convention. A cursory examination of that publication would show that none of the articles it
published in the relevant time included footnote citations. Therefore, consistent with the
magazine’s formatting convention, President Gay cited her authorities at the end of the article as
“Suggestions for Further Reading” (which Dr. Andrews noted) and not with footnotes.
In sum, more than a dozen eminent scholars have put their name and their reputation
behind President Gay, stating, without a doubt, that the conclusions and allegations put forward
by The Post are false. The statements of these scholars, and their own plainly stated conclusions
about the use of their own work, should end the inquiry entirely.
III. The “Complaints” Allegedly “Received” By The Post Are Inherently Suspect.
It is incredibly telling — and should give The Post great pause — that these “complaints” about
alleged plagiarism were not presented through proper academic channels, of which there are many.
Every institution of higher education in the United States has clearly defined procedures and
mechanisms to adjudicate complaints of academic integrity. Harvard University certainly does, as
does every University with which President Gay has ever been affiliated. Instead of invoking any of
these procedures and mechanisms, where the allegations would be carefully scrutinized by
credentialed experts and subject-matter experts, they were presented (anonymously it seems) to The
New York Post — a media outlet with no particular focus, audience, or subject matter expertise relating

5
to academic writing or plagiarism. The choice of The New York Post to air (anonymously) such
inflammatory and highly specialized “complaints” should cast serious doubt on the bias and
motivations of the source, if one exists.
Indeed, there are strong indications that the excerpts cited by The Post were not in fact the
“complaints” of a human complainant — but rather were generated by artificial intelligence or some
other technological or automated means. If these indications are correct, and the ultimate source
of these examples is an algorithm-generated list created by asking ChatGPT to (for example) “show
me the 10 most similar passages in works by Claudine Gay to other scholarly works” it is no
“complaint” at all. It is, instead, manufactured news. Rest assured that, in any legal proceeding
made necessary by the publication of defamatory allegations of plagiarism, we will explore in
discovery the source and provenance of these alleged “complaints.”
We request, prior to the publication of any proposed article, senior editors and attorneys at
The Post conduct their own independent investigation of these issues. That investigation should
include, at a minimum, determining the following:
• Did a human person — or any form or technology — identify the cited excerpts?
• Were the complaints “received” by the reporter before or after she started “researching” the
proposed article?
• Did The Post play any role in initiating or procuring those complaints?
• Is there any human person who is willing to be identified as making the “complaint”?
• Why would someone making such a complaint be unwilling to attach their name to it?
• Why would anyone making such a complaint go to The New York Post instead of a proper
academic channel or a publication with subject matter expertise on academic plagiarism?
IV. False Allegations of Plagiarism Would Cause Immense Reputational and
Emotional Damages.
I am sure you understand the seriousness of these issues. False allegations of plagiarism are
defamatory per se. In Massachusetts, the publication of statements that are defamatory per se allows
recovery of reputational injury, emotional injury, and other noneconomic losses. See, e g., Ravnikar
v. Bogjavlensky, 438 Mass. 627, 630 (Mass. 2003). President Gay has worked hard and with great
diligence, over the course of many decades, to establish her reputation for honesty and integrity as
a scholar. It would be reckless and irresponsible for The Post to attempt to destroy that reputation
with a proposed article falsely accusing her of plagiarizing the work of other scholars — against the
unrebutted testimony of more than a dozen eminent scholars with specific knowledge and subject-
matter expertise regarding the scholarly work at issue.
We submit that, under the circumstances, The Post must not move forward with the proposed
article. This is not a full statement of our clients’ rights and remedies, all of which are expressly
reserved.

6
Exhibit A
 Jens Ludwig
Harris School of Public Policy
University of Chicago

Chicago, IL 60637
Email: @uchicago.edu
Telephone (cell):

October 26, 2023

Statement in Response to NY Post

I have been in touch with six of my coauthors on the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) papers, and
none of us believe that Professor Gay plagiarized our work. Given that she used the same
statistical techniques that we did and studied the same government program, it is not surprising
that she used similar language in a handful of places in her paper. Her MTO paper studies the
impact of residential mobility on political participation, a topic we did not address in our
work. Professor Gay’s paper is an important original scientific contribution.
Exhibit B
 Jeffrey B. Liebman
Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Public Policy
Director, Taubman Center for State and Local Government
Director, Government Performance Lab

Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

(617)

October 26, 2023

Statement in Response to Questions from the New York Post

I am one of the authors of the Moving to Opportunity Interim Impacts Evaluation. Yesterday, I carefully
reread our paper and President Gay’s paper. I do not see any signs of plagiarism. I also checked in with
four of my coauthors, and none of them has any concerns either.
More fundamentally, when we do scientific writing, we use the technical terms for things. So, it is not
surprising when two researchers describing the same statistical procedure or the same government
program use similar language. Moreover, the evaluation of the MTO demonstration was a very large
undertaking that involved many different researchers from different disciplines collaborating in different
configurations over a twenty-year period. In each paper that came out of the MTO research, the authors
needed to repeat the basic description of the program and of the statistical techniques that the papers all
had in common. As the MTO research unfolded, lots of us contributed to developing and refining the
language that we used for these basic descriptions, and all of us, including President Gay, had the right to
use and adapt this common language – regardless of what configuration of authors was involved in the
particular publication.
The other thing that stood out to me as I reread these papers is how original President Gay’s contribution
was. In studying the impact of neighborhood moves on political participation, she not only identified a
specific downside to these moves, she also illuminated the more fundamental processes through which
residential mobility can lead to a loss of social ties.
Exhibit C
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY

CENTER FOR GOVERNMENT AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT
(617) CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02138
(617)495-0438 FAX

October 27, 2023

Statement by Stephen Ansolabehere in response to New York Post allegations

I read Claudine Gays’ papers before they were published as they are on questions that
interest me. At the time nothing struck me as unusual. Reading these passages again, I
do not see anything alarming. These are generic expressions and wordings frequently
used in social science writing. Some of the language in question is simply restating
specific hypotheses or claims of others and there is no other way to put it. I see no
evidence of plagiarism.
Exhibit D