One of the academics who has accused Harvard president Claudine Gay of ripping off her work claims the Ivy League school won’t condemn her because it holds “high pedigree” minorities to lower standards than others.

Carol Swain, a former political science professor at Vanderbilt University, blasted the school in a fiery Wall Street Journal op-ed published Monday — nearly a week after Harvard said it was standing by Gay following an investigation into the plagiarism claims leveled against her.

“Harvard can’t condemn Ms. Gay because she is the product of an elite system that holds minorities of high pedigree to a lower standard,” Swain said.

“This harms academia as a whole, and it demeans Americans, of all races, who had to work for everything they earned.”

Gay was hit with accusations that she lifted scholars’ works in her 1997 doctoral thesis and wrote four papers published between 1993 and 2017 that didn’t have proper attribution.

The Harvard Corporation — the school’s highest governing body — disclosed last week that an independent review into plagiarism allegations had uncovered three instances of “inadequate citation” on Gay’s part, but no misconduct.

Swain, for her part, claims the Harvard prez copied sections of her 1993 book, “Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress,” as well as an article published in 1997 titled, “Women and Blacks in Congress: 1870-1996.” 

The ex-Vanderbilt professor accused Gay of ignoring “the substantive importance of my research” by failing to cite her at a time when Swain’s work was “considered seminal.”

“When scholars aren’t cited adequately or their work is ignored, it harms them because academic stature is determined by how often other researchers cite your work,” Swain said.

“Ms. Gay had no problem riding on the coattails of people whose work she used without proper attribution. Many of those whose work she pilfered aren’t as incensed as I am. They are elites who have benefited from a system that protects its own.”

“Even aside from the documented instances of plagiarism, Ms. Gay’s work wouldn’t normally have earned tenure in the Ivy League. Tenure at a top-tier institution normally demands ground-breaking originality; her work displays none,” Swain continued.

“In a world where the privilege of diversity is king, Ms. Gay was able to parlay mediocre research into tenure and administrative advancement at what was once considered a world-class university.”

Swain had also suggested last week that Gay was “getting a free pass” because she was the product of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Gay, however, vehemently defended her academic rigor when the allegations surfaced, telling the Boston Globe: “I stand by the integrity of my scholarship. Throughout my career, I have worked to ensure my scholarship adheres to the highest academic standards.”

The revelations of Gay’s alleged plagiarism emerged after the university’s leader came after she faced intense backlash in the wake of her disastrous congressional hearing about antisemitism.

Gay and several other Ivy League presidents became embroiled in a firestorm after they failed to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews at their respective schools during the congressional hearing.

It prompted some lawmakers and Harvard donors to quickly call for Gay to step down after her testimony sparked intense national backlash.

University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, who appeared alongside Gay at the hearing, resigned four days after the disastrous testimony.