Claudine Gay Mired In New Plagiarism Scandal After Harvard Hires Dan Held to Consult on Bitcoin Purchase.
Harvard President Claudine Gay is mired in yet another plagiarism scandal this week after the University's endowment hired consultant Dan Held to advise on Bitcoin purchases as well as the University's announcement. The Harvard endowment fund recently purchased $250 million of Bitcoin with the assistance of Held.
The move is widely seen as a political stunt by the Harvard Endowment to generate headlines and buzz to distract from President Gay's plagiarism scandal as well as accusations of antisemitism on campus. However, this move backfired when the University failed to do due diligence on Held before he was hired to consult. Greg Foutz, President of the Harvard Students for Liberty Club told the Bugle "Someone in a position like that should know, or at least be able to quickly find out, that Dan Held is a serial meme thief and plagiarism enjoyer."
Accusations that President Gay plagiarized Bitcoin memes in the announcement began almost immediately after Harvard's press release went public Saturday. Several users on X pointed out that statements penned by President Gay including "Harvard purchased $250 million worth of Bitcoin today, a day when banks are closed, but Bitcoin never closes." A few sentences later she explained Harvard's chosen custody model, a Ledger Nano S Plus, which she justified with "If they're not your keys, they're not your coins."
Harvard published a short statement acknowledging that Dan Held was hired to consult for the purchases and admitted the university should have vetted him more thoroughly. University board members attempted to shield President Gay from plagiarism accusations saying the president's signature is applied to all major official university communications but it doesn't mean she wrote the press release. However, these claims were called into question when screenshots of now deleted tweets from Claudine Gay's personal X account surfaced showing she had tweeted "If they're not your keys, they're not your coins."
Dan Held was not able to be reached for comment before press time as he blocked The Bugle and virtually every other X account which posted about the scandal. President Gay did not directly respond to requests for comment from The Bugle but did reply to an email, "The Bitcoin protocol doesn't care. Tick tock next block." The controversy only seems to prove that Bitcoin truly is for everyone, even the yuppy elite.