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AP Burns Headline Declaring Plagiarism a ‘Conservative Weapon’ After Harvard Prez’s Resignation

The story, which originally declared plagiarism to be a “new conservative weapon,” was substantially reworked after it was criticized for its framing.

The headline and first few paragraphs of an Associated Press story on the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay were updated with new language on Wednesday after its framing of plagiarism as a “new conservative weapon” was widely mocked across social media. The story’s original headline, archived online as “Harvard president’s resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism,” was changed to read “Plagiarism charges downed Harvard’s president. A conservative attack helped to fan the outrage.” Both stories traced the weeks of scrutiny that Gay’s academic work was subjected to after what was perceived as a fumbled response to antisemitism on campus in recent months. An AP spokesperson told Fox News, which first reported the reworking of the story, that the initial piece had not been up to the wire’s standards. The story as originally published was met with fierce online criticism, with Scott Jennings, a conservative political commentator for CNN, observing that it was “remarkable” that conservatives had found time “to invent the concept of plagiarism over the last couple of months.”