Carol Swain, all-star panelist and award-winning scholar at the center of one of the nation’s largest cases of academic misconduct, joined the newsmaker line on Friday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss the latest developments in the ongoing plagiarism scandal at Harvard University.
TRANSCRIPT
Michael Patrick Leahy: 11:34 a.m., broadcasting live from our studios in downtown Nashville in-studio. Original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael on our newspaper line right now. Also all Star panelist and good friend Carol Swain.
Good morning, Carol.
Carol Swain: Good morning. How are you and Crom?
Michael Patrick Leahy: Well, we miss you. We do. We’d like to have you here in-studio.
Crom Carmichael: We like to hear your voice, but prefer you in person.
But you’re so busy. You’re so busy now, since you’ve been a key figure in the plagiarism charges against the former president of Harvard, Claudine Gay.
You sent Harvard a letter asking them to respond to tell you what their plagiarism policy was. You asked them to respond by Monday. Did you get a response from them?
Carol Swain: We have not gotten a response from them.
Michael Patrick Leahy: That’s pretty arrogant on their part.
Carol Swain: Well, they’re probably busy handling the antisemitism complaints.
Michael Patrick Leahy: I saw that. We’ve reported that at The Tennessee Star. Students Against Anti Semitism have filed a complaint against Harvard for being antisemitic.
Crom Carmichael: Carol, I have a question for you. The plagiarism that Claudine Gay did against you, lifting your thoughts, is a substantial amount.
Is she liable?
Carol Swain: There are two things. One is, we’re using Harvard University’s own plagiarism policy as a guide, and it includes not just the verbatim taking of someone’s idea words, but also the stealing of ideas. And my contention is that my award-winning book, Black Faces, Black Interests, The Representation of African-Americans in Congress, published in 1993, that her dissertation and her first three articles borrowed substantially from ideas that, in fact, it’s a reaction. A counter-reaction to my research.
She’s clearly trying to refute the research without actually engaging it and citing me. So that’s my position that she would not have had a dissertation or a research agenda had it not been for my book.
Michael Patrick Leahy: I think you make a very compelling case. Anybody with any honesty and common sense would acknowledge that. When you sent the letter to Harvard last week and said, ‘Please respond by Monday, January 8th with your definition of plagiarism.’ Did you expect them to respond? And what’s your next step?
Carol Swain: Well, we asked them some very simple questions that they should have been able to respond to, but at the end of the day, we knew that they had boxed themselves into a situation that, you know, there is no response without them contradicting themselves. And as far as my next response, I’ve turned that over to lawyers and they are calling the shots as far as timing, but one thing is clear that is that they have not responded and maybe, you know, they don’t think I’m important enough that I deserve a response.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Well, they’re not acting in good faith, that’s for sure.
But you’ve got a compelling case – to me, this is just me speaking. The failure of Claudine Gay, the former president of Harvard, to acknowledge and cite your work in her work has harmed your reputation significantly.
Your thoughts on that?
Carol Swain: Well, I would say that in academia, your stature is measured by how many citations you get.
Now my book, I’ve said before, it won three national prizes; it’s been cited by the U. S. Supreme Court. It was making an impact in the area of voting rights. And it looks as if Claudine Gay was trying to provide a counter to my conclusions that would have been helpful for the people who disagreed with my position about representation.
Part of what I argued in Black Faces, Black Interest is that political party was more important than the race of the representative and that whites could represent blacks, blacks could represent whites and that pretty much the representation was more than just having a representative that matched the majority of the district.
I’ve illustrated that there was a tradeoff between descriptive representation, having more people who looked like you, and substantive representation, having people who would support your agenda. And part of what she argues, it’s all about how important it is to have black representatives, black descriptive representation.
And that, I believe, is part of what motivated her work. Now, in some of those articles, I am in her bibliography, but I’m not cited in the literature review. And I’ve had some people say, well, she didn’t really plagiarize you, she plagiarized Hannah Pitkin. One of the key paragraphs in Black Faces Black Interest, I’m describing descriptive representation, and I have a sentence, as Hannah Pitkin says, something like that, and then I go talking about it because I’m going to expand Hannah’s concept.
That’s where she borrowed – or stole – information, and she didn’t cite me, and she didn’t cite Hannah Pitkin.
Hannah Pitkin’s was the classic work on representation published in 1972. And, like, it’s a book that I read in graduate school, and it was very helpful as I was doing my work on representation.
But that work is not cited in Claudine Gay’s work on black congressional representation. Her early work was on black congressional representation, and one of the charges against her is that she refuses to make her data available to statisticians who question her findings.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Yeah, the other thing just to point out in terms of that argument, your argument, was that substantive representation as an example of a white member of Congress in the Democratic Party for a majority-black district could be, I guess, as effective for their interests as descriptive representation – in other words, a black–
Carol Swain: Even more effective. And because at the time I did my study, many of the members of Congress, I guess, a few whites and blacks were not even showing up to vote.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Well, here’s something for you, Carol, just to say to the case in point that proves your thesis: Steve Cohen.
White member of Congress, Democrat from Memphis, who has represented for a long time a majority-black district in Memphis, and say what you will about him, he has aggressively represented the interest of the black majority in his district.
Would you agree with that?
Carol Swain: I would say that he has represented the interest probably of leftist black leaders.
I think that if you look at Memphis and the needs of the people, he hasn’t represented that very well. But as far as the positions taken by the congressional black caucus and black elites, he’s done a great job of supporting that.
Michael Patrick Leahy: I guess that would be 20, 30 years after your seminal work. I guess that’s advancing the narrative a little bit, isn’t it?
Carol Swain: Right. Yes, it is. And at any rate, that is my position. And the harm to me was that it had to be deliberate because in some cases you say that you take people who did studies derivative of my study where they cited me properly. She cites them, but she doesn’t cite me.
Michael Patrick Leahy: I think it was deliberate.
Carol Swain: Yes.
Crom Carmichael: And you know, one of the things, a great example to Carol’s point, is that black Democrats oppose school choice. White Democrats oppose school choice because they side more with the teachers unions. And all the money that flows through the teachers unions than they do with black parents who want to send their children to better schools.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Good point.
Crom Carmichael: And Steve Cohen would fit that definition to a tee.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Carol now, you don’t necessarily have to say anything here because I know your attorneys are handling this. But to me, I think Claudine Gay and Harvard University have caused you significant economic damage.
Carol Swain: I mean, I think all of that will be assessed at the right time, but I have a lawyer, you know, the chief lawyer on this is very cautious, and he is very much, you know, he has this strategy, and I’m letting him guide the ship.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Well, that’s why those are, those are my, my non-legal view of it, not your attorney’s nor yours.
Carol Swain: Well, one of the benefits that’s come out of this is that I’m getting opportunities to speak and opportunities to talk about higher education and how we can reform the system. And that’s more important to me, like Claudine Gay and what happened to me, please, that’s just, symptom of a larger problem of a broken system.
Michael Patrick Leahy: You seem to be very visible in many media outlets now. Have you seen your visibility rise significantly? Since this Claudine Gay plagiarism scandal has arisen?
Carol Swain: Yes, I have, and I can see that in my social media following, but also the places where I’m getting invited to speak. And I think that people really realize that that’s a lot at stake.
And I have many people contacting me, applauding me for not backing down.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Have you been on Fox News at all about this?
Carol Swain: I have not been on Fox News recently.
Michael Patrick Leahy: What’s wrong with Fox News? Why aren’t they bringing you on?
Carol Swain: I don’t know. There’s something someone apparently at the top doesn’t want me on Fox News.
And that seems very clear. I don’t know why, other than it could be they consider me an election denier. I prefer to be considered an election questioner.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Yeah, that’s what you are. You are an election questioner.
Crom Carmichael: That’s a great, that’s a great term.
Michael Patrick Leahy: And it’s an excellent term. And it’s an honest term. And well, Carol Swain, we are, as always, delighted to talk with you.
And of course, you’re so busy. Carol’s so busy, she can only do our news, our phone line, phone calls here.
Crom Carmichael: Carol, I think you were considering a position out west. Any news on that?
Carol Swain: News that I’m going to be staying in Nashville.
Michael Patrick Leahy: And on that note, Carol, come in studio as soon as you’ve got an opening in your schedule, but I know you’re very busy.
Thanks for joining us, Carol.
Carol Swain: We will find a time to schedule for me to come in. And so I will be in at some point soon.
Michael Patrick Leahy: All right. Well, we look forward to it.
Thank you, Carol.
Carol Swain: Thank you, bye.
Michael Patrick Leahy: All right. Up next, Crom and I – we’ve got a local issue we’re going to talk about a little bit of a budget hole in the Tennessee state budget.
Back after this.
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Photo “Carol Swain” by Carol Swain.
