I just read Alexandra Alter's New York Times article about the University of Washington (UW) dismissing the charge of Robin DiAngelo's plagiarism. I am astonished.
DiAngelo's plagiarism in her dissertation is patent. UW's letter invents a novel criterion for plagiarism that, if applied consistently, would undermine academic standards across the board. DiAngelo's acts of theft are excused because she "credited" the authors she stole from "in her bibliography." This method of citing sources is a common practice among plagiarists. It is a shallow defense meant to cover the plagiarist's tracks and is in no way a legitimate scholarly practice.
The UW letter also rolls out the idea that DiAngelo's unattributed quotations from other writers fall under "research norms [that] allow for the limited reuse of language to describe previous research or background information." This is a gross exaggeration of such "research norms." No one is obligated to cite sources for such things as names, titles, dates, or commonly accepted knowledge. You can cite Einstein's formula E=mc2 without citing his 1905 paper in Annalen der Physik. But you cannot go around copying whole sentences and paragraphs of other writers and present their ideas as if they are your own.
The University of Washington's response to the clear evidence is nothing short of a major scandal.
Of course, DiAngelo was free to draw ideas from other writers. She simply needed to say that she was doing so and to cite them specifically. She could also quote such authors and appropriately cite them. She did neither of these things in the passages that have come to light.
It is unclear who at the University of Washington composed the letter dismissing the complaint. The New York Times cites a separate email from the recently appointed university's director of media relations, Dana Robinson Slote. Until May, according to UW News, Ms. Slote "ran communications efforts for the Seattle City Council." It is hard to see that this gives her particularly strong grounds to uphold the statement in her email that "We are committed to the integrity of research conducted at the University of Washington." How would she know?
The New York Times also cites "Jonathan Bailey, a plagiarism expert." Bailey is, in fact, a self-described plagiarism expert who runs a website, Plagiarismtoday.com, and offers his services as an expert witness. His academic background consists of a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of South Carolina. He is neither a lawyer nor a scholar, but a professional writer interested in plagiarism. The New York Times cites his opinion that "while one or two of the passages cited in the complaint were 'problematic,' the majority of them weren't similar enough to substantiate claims of plagiarism."
I submit that Bailey's opinion, like Ms. Slote's, is a frail defense of DiAngelo's work.
Of course, there is another dimension to this story. DiAngelo's dissertation was inspected by someone (I don't know whom) who was surely moved by her prominence as the author of White Fragility and her role as a major figure in the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement. The New York Times quotes DiAngelo responding to the accusation by denouncing "anti-D.E.I. activists" who are seeking to "discredit D.E.I. efforts." She says that it is "one of their more predictable strategies " that these activists claim that "progressive scholars who write about race have engaged in plagiarism."
Indeed, several prominent promoters of DEI, including Harvard's former president Claudine Gay, have come under criticism for plagiarism. Is this because they have been unfairly singled out? Or is it because figures in this field have been held to very loose academic standards and have disproportionately engaged in this particular form of academic dishonesty?
The evidence so far gives weight to the latter.
But there is still more to this story. The University of Washington does not come to this controversy with clean hands. Within the last month, audio surfaced of a meeting of the Psychology faculty at the University of Washington in which a professor called out several UW administrators for orchestrating illegal racial preferences in faculty hiring and then covering up this malfeasance by shifting the blame to faculty members.
There is a longer story here. A year ago, the National Association of Scholars documented that the University of Washington Psychology Department had twisted the results of a faculty search to ensure that a black candidate was awarded the job offer. We found this by using freedom of information requests to ferret out internal documents. Once we exposed the scandal, the UW administration adopted an approach of wounded innocence and blamed the Psychology Department. Now a member of the department, Ione Fine, has come forward to say that she and others were threatened and intimidated by senior administrators who demanded that the search be rigged.
Is there some resonance to how the UW administration has responded to the allegations of DiAngelo's plagiarism and how it responded to the revelation that it had corrupted a faculty search? It appears that the UW administration will do almost anything to protect its investment in DEI. If that involves covering up or excusing plagiarism or breaking both state and federal law on racial discrimination—UW administrators are up for it.
The University's faculty and students deserve better, as do all of us who care for—to borrow Ms. Slote's words—"the integrity of research conducted at the University of Washington."
Photo by Dzmitry via Adobe Stock (asset ID#: 472639629)
