'Record Is Flimsy': Harvard President Claudine Gay’s academic record is much thinner than former Harvard presidents as plagiarism allegations have brought her scholarship into question, experts say. Former Harvard presidents have many more academic papers and have achieved some sort of academic distinction, such as former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and historian Drew Gilpin Faust. Multiple accusations of plagiarism arose following Gay’s testimony at a House Committee on Education and the Workforce, including in her Ph.D. thesis, yielding questions about her academic record, which consists of 11 peer-reviewed papers and one book.