The rest of American higher education looks to Harvard for guidance on academic norms. With that leadership role in mind, the university should clear away the uncertainty over how it has applied its plagiarism policies to president Claudine Gay’s past academic work and state clearly whether several of her papers ran afoul of the rules it expects students and professors to follow — or not.

Embattled Harvard University President Dr. Claudine Gay is now being accused of plagiarism.

A political scientist claims she did not get credit in the Ph.D. thesis that helped Gay land the top spot in the Ivy League.

This comes just after the university board reaffirmed its support of Gay, who was being pressured to resign over Capitol Hill testimony where she didn’t outright condemn antisemitism on campus.

Dr. Carol Swain, a political scientist and legal scholar, told NewsNation’s Leland Vittert Tuesday night that Harvard was trying to protect Gay.

Boy, are the powers-that-be at Harvard invested in protecting President Claudine Gay — not just over her telling fumbles on antisemitism, but on multiple indications of plagiarism in her (scant) published academic work.

Concerns that Harvard not only kept secret, but deployed high-powered attorneys to try to quash.

The Post began investigating Gay’s potential plagiarism weeks before her disastrous Dec. 5 House testimony on antisemitism, reaching out to Harvard Oct. 24 for comment on dozens of suspect passages.