Harvard University’s chief diversity officer heavily plagiarized in her academic works, a newly filed complaint alleges.
On Tuesday, the Washington Free Beacon published an anonymous complaint contending that Sherri Ann Charleston, Harvard’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, published papers containing a collective 40 examples of plagiarism. The revelations came weeks after then-Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned after independent reporters unearthed her extensive history of purportedly plagiarizing other academics’ works. According to the Free Beacon, “Charleston served on the staff advisory committee that helped guide the university’s presidential search process that resulted in” Gay’s appointment in 2022.
[RELATED: Don’t Stop With Plagiarist Claudine Gay. Remove Every Useless, Overpaid University Administrator]
Filed on Monday, the aforementioned complaint contains allegations that Charleston “quote[d] or paraphrase[d] nearly a dozen scholars without proper attribution” in her 2009 dissertation at the University of Michigan. Also highlighted in the report are claims that Charleston and her husband, LaVar Charleston, “recycle[d]” material from a study LaVar published in 2012 for a 2014 peer-reviewed journal article the couple co-authored in 2014.
LaVar currently serves as the deputy vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Charleston worked as the school’s chief affirmative action officer prior to joining Harvard in 2020. Charleston also taught courses on “women, inequality, and policy analysis” while at UW-Madison, according to her Harvard bio.
“Through that sleight of hand, Sherri Ann Charleston effectively took credit for her husband’s work,” the Free Beacon report reads. “The 2014 paper, which was also coauthored with Jerlando
