There were no more sweeping public statements of support. Many professors stopped defending her in the press. Instead, faculty members turned to one another during holiday parties, on email and text chains, and during their winter break to make sense of what they were seeing. There were disagreements about how serious the allegations were and whether they were tainted by their source, conservative activists and news outlets. But a large swath of professors came to the same conclusion: An independent committee should painstakingly investigate the merits of the accusations. But as more and more accusations of plagiarism in Gay’s academic...