Columbia official accused of plagiarizing a dissertation from Wikipedia
An official in charge of diversity, equity and inclusion at Columbia University Irving Medical Center was accused this week of plagiarizing large portions of his dissertation, according to an anonymous complaint filed with the university.
The 55-page complaint accused the official, Alade McKen, of copying material in his 2021 dissertation at Iowa State University from more than two dozen other scientists and from Wikipedia, which was written and edited by volunteers from the general public .
The complaint read published online Thursday by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news website that led a campaign against former Harvard University President Claudine Gay last year. She resigned in January amid accusations of plagiarism and after her response to anti-Semitism on campus drew criticism.
Allegations of plagiarism have rocked the world of elite academia in recent months. They often had explicitly political overtones, with conservative critics making accusations against left-wing administrators and at least one high-profile accusation portrayed as an act of liberal revenge.
The complaint, published online Thursday, accused Mr. McKen of copying passages from his dissertation from the Wikipedia entry for “Afrocentric education” and from the published scholarship or dissertations of at least 28 people.
“Is Alade McKen a plagiarist?” wrote the anonymous author of the complaint at the top of page 1. “A small selection of examples from his dissertation is included below to guide your research.”
Mr. McKen did not respond to messages seeking comment on Thursday. Angie Hunt, a spokeswoman for Iowa State University, said the school “has received the complaint and is in the process of reviewing it.”
“The university is committed to the highest ethical standards to ensure the integrity and public trust in research conducted at Iowa State,” Ms. Hunt said in a statement.
Columbia declined to comment on the case, saying in a statement that it does not comment on “the details of individual personnel matters.”
“Columbia University has clear standards and policies regarding academic ethics and integrity for all members of our community, including faculty, and we take allegations of misconduct seriously,” the school said.
The passages in Mr. McKen’s thesis at issue were largely taken verbatim from other scientists or from Wikipedia, with only minor changes to grammar or verb tenses, the complaint said. The New York Times reviewed parts of the thesis and the Wikipedia page and found parts that appeared to be much the same.
“Woodson criticized the education of African Americans as ‘miseducation’ because he believed it denigrated the black population and glorified the white population,” Mr. McKen wrote on page 53 of his thesis, referring to the influential black scholar Dr. Carter G. Woodson. “For many early Afrocentrists, the goal was to break what they saw as a vicious cycle of the reproduction of black self-abnegation.”
Almost the same phrase appears in the Wikipedia article on “Afrocentric education.” It appeared that Mr. McKen had changed the order of a few words and removed one hyphen.
“Woodson criticized the education of African Americans as ‘wrong education’ because he believed it denigrated blacks and glorified whites.” the Wikipedia article states. “For these early Afrocentrists, the goal was to break what they saw as a vicious cycle of the reproduction of black self-abnegation.” The Times reviewed versions of the page dates from 2013 in an online archive and found identical language.
Mr. McKen is the third diversity administrator at an Ivy League university to be accused of plagiarism in a month, after Sherri Ann Charleston And Shirley R. Greeneboth at Harvard.
At Harvard, Dr. Gay resigned in January after an anonymous tipster uncovered more than 40 cases of plagiarism in her academic work. These accusations started shortly after Dr. Gay survived an earlier campaign to oust her over what critics called her inadequate response to anti-Semitism after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
She had been president of Harvard for about six months — the first black woman in that role.
Days later, an investigation by the news website Business Insider accused Neri Oxman, the wife of one of Dr. Gay’s main critics, hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, accused her of having parts of her dissertation plagiarized by other scientists and on Wikipedia.
Ms Oxman later apologized for what she called “mistakes”. a message on Twitter. Mr. Ackman said he believed the charges against his wife were in retaliation for his advocacy for Dr.’s ouster. Gay, which he described as “my actions to address issues in higher education.”
Mr. McKen began his position at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, which includes the university’s medical school, in September 2023. Previously, he was assistant dean of recruitment, diversity and inclusion at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Conservation, according to a university profile.
In addition to his doctorate in education, social and cultural studies from Iowa State, Mr. McKen earned a master’s degree in higher education administration from Baruch College and a diversity and inclusion certificate from Cornell University, the profile said.