University Dismisses Plagiarism Complaint Against Robin DiAngelo

AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson

Was there every really any doubt how this was going to turn out? I don't think so. Today the NY Times reports that the University of Washington has dismissed the plagiarism claim lodged against Robin DiAngelo.

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In a letter in response to the complaint dated last Wednesday, a university representative said that the evidence presented failed to meet the institution’s criteria for plagiarism, which it defines as “the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results or words without giving appropriate credit.”

As a result, the university determined that there was no basis for conducting an inquiry into DiAngelo’s thesis, according to the letter, which was provided to The Times by DiAngelo.

So they're not even really going to investigate. They've just decided the complaint itself doesn't deserve a response, despite it providing evidence that DiAngelo used other people's exact words without quotation marks on several occasions. For example:

DiAngelo 129 

Indeed, Whiteness may be characterized by a contradictory consciousness in which an insistent innocence is contingent upon involvement in racial oppression (Schick, 1998).  

Cynthia Levine-Rasky (2000) Framing Whiteness: Working through the tensions in introducing whiteness to educators, Race Ethnicity and Education, 3:3, 277 

Indeed, whiteness may be as characterised by a contradictory consciousness in which a definitive innocence is contingent upon involvement in racial oppression (Schick, 1998).

That looks like a quote with just one word changed. Another example:

DiAngelo 35  

An individual emerges through the processes of social interaction, not as a fixed personality but as one who is constituted and reconstituted through the various discursive practices in which they participate. This form of analysis views the subject as open and shifting depending on the positions made available through his or her own and others discursive practices.  

Journal for the ‘Theory Of Social Behauiour 20: 1. Positioning: The Discursive Production of Selves BRONWYN DAVIES and ROM HARRE 46  

An individual emerges through the processes of social interaction, not as a relatively fixed end product but as one who is constituted and reconstituted through the various discursive practices in which they participate. Accordingly, who one is is always an open question with a shifting answer depending upon the positions made available within one’s own and others’ discursive practices and within those practices, the stories through which we make sense of our own and others’ lives.

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These aren't just similar, they are nearly identical, with just a few words changed. One more example:

DiAngelo:

If these definitions of reliability and validity are taken to be reasonable criteria for judging the rhetorical effectiveness of research, then this study meets the expectations of a rigorous demonstration of intertextuality, convergence, and linguistic detail. While it is more difficult to assess whether it meets the standards of agreement and coverage without more comment from other members of related orders of discourse analysis, it is reasonable to assume that the substantive interpretations of this study are not idiosyncratic.

Cloyes, K. (2004). The politics of mental illness in a prison control unit: A discourse analysis. Unpublished dissertation. University of Washington, Seattle, 296 

If these definitions of reliability and validity are taken to be reasonable criteria for judging the rhetorical effectiveness of poststructural research, then the present study meets the expectations of a rigorous demonstration of intertextuality, convergence, and linguistic detail. While it is more difficult to asses whether it meets the standards of agreement and coverage without more feedback from other members of the related order of discourse, it is realistic to assume that the substantive interpretations of this study, extensively based as they are on concrete samples of text and discourse-in-action, are not idiosyncratic, and will satisfy these requirements to a considerable degree. 

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She changed four words and left out a phrase. Nevertheless, DiAngelo put out a statement making herself out to be a victim.

“Anti-D.E.I. activists have been clear about their agenda to discredit D.E.I. efforts, and claiming that progressive scholars who write about race have engaged in plagiarism is one of their more predictable strategies," DiAngelo, who is white, said in a statement. “I am certainly not the first in the D.E.I. field to be accused — progressive Black scholars in particular have been targeted with this allegation.”

Even the Times admits the allegations included "lengthy passages" taken "almost verbatim."

While DiAngelo cited the scholars whose ideas she referred to and credited them in her bibliography, the complaint highlighted some lengthy passages that repeat phrases almost verbatim from their source material, without quotation marks.

The university, in its response, said that those similarities in language did not constitute plagiarism, because research norms allow for the limited reuse of language to describe previous research or background information.

But they also quote a plagiarism expert who says only some of the examples cited in the complaint were "problematic."

So that's it, apparently. The University of Washington had decided this is nothing and DiAngelo won't even be asked to correct anything. It's hard to believe this sort of thing would be overlooked as generously if DiAngelo were a high profile conservative.

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