Shock of shocks, it seems like there is not a lot of original thought or scholarship among the intersectionally diverse. MIT is once again proving that point.

After seeing plagiarism scandals engulf Harvard, you would think that other schools would have done a thourough check on their staff. But they didn’t, and have left it up to investigative journalists like Christopher Rufo, Luke Rosiak of the Daily Wire, and Aaron Sibarium of the Washington Free Beacon to do the dirty work of actually looking through the published works of multiple university employees who are allegedly supposed to be the top of the intellectual crop. Rufo, of course, was key in exposing the plagiarism of former Harvard president Claudine Gay, which eventually cost her the top job. Harvard also had to retract papers from their teaching hospital, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and then Sibarium uncovered the plagiarism by Harvard’s “Chief Diversity Officer” Sherri Ann Charleston, but so far, she has not been held to account by Harvard itself. Rufo and Rosiak then exposed an amazing case of plagiarism by Natalie J. Perry, a “DEI leader” at the UCLA School of Medicine, who had published exactly ONE paper – her dissertation – and stole work from TEN other people. UCLA, up until this point, has gone radio silent about the accusations, although the school which gave her a Ph.D, the University of Virginia, is apparently looking into the accusations and could revoke her degree if they thought it was necessary.

But what we are seeing is a consistent pattern of – let’s just say it – black women who are being hired under a DEI banner, who are falsifying their work and plagiarizing the work of other people, creating Frankenstein monsters of published works, in order to get hired on at prestigious (or formerly prestigious) universities where they can wave their intersectionality banners high. The blog Plagiarism Today counters that the epidemic of plagiarism isn’t a DEI problem, but a problem across academia, pointing to other examples. Okay, audit everyone. Why not?

This quote below is on par with: "If conservative men do not change, we feminists will TOTALLY ABANDON sex outside of committed relationships!"

I mean….please…DO audit the whole Harvard faculty. I AM sure white blue-hairs plagiarize at proportional levels or close. https://t.co/pjRKEZ3eB1

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) April 10, 2024

Which leads us to MIT. Aaron Sibarium, yet again doing the work that the universities are apparently too afraid to do, has a doozy of a plagiarism allegation right out of their DEI leadership. We have not one, but TWO diversity deans that were hired by MIT that have apparently plagiarized their work.

MIT welcomed six new deans of diversity, equity, and inclusion, one for each of the institute’s main schools, as part of a “DEI Strategic Action Plan” launched the previous year. Aimed at boosting the representation of women and minorities, in part by developing DEI criteria for staff performance reviews, the plan pledged to “make equity central” to the university “while ensuring the highest standards of excellence.”

But according to a 71-page complaint filed with the university on Saturday, at least two of the six DEI officials may not be living up to those standards. The complaint alleges that Tracie Jones-Barrett and Alana Anderson are serial plagiarists, copying entire pages of text without attribution and riding roughshod over MIT’s academic integrity policies.

You will not be surprised to discover that Tracie Jones-Barrett (listed as MIT’s “Deputy Institute Community and Equity Officer”) and Alana Anderson (who was “assistant dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing”) are both black women. You know, if people are trying to convince the public that plagiarism is an academia-wide issue and not a DEI one, they’re doing a pretty crap job of it.

But let’s get to the thick irony that Sibarium has to share with everyone. Jones-Barrett’s 2023 dissertation, in which she is alleged to have plagiarized from others, is titled… “Cite a Sista.” Insert multiple facepalm gifs here.

The section is one of several long passages taken from Wyche's 2020 thesis, "Boyz in the Hoods: (Re) Defining the Narratives of Black Male Doctoral Degree Completers," which does not appear in Jones-Barrett's bibliography. pic.twitter.com/tbAkSZkunP

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2024

And then there’s Anderson.

Her 2017 dissertation, "#BLACKONCAMPUS: A Critical Examination of Racial and Gender Performances of Black College Women on Social Media," lifts over a page of material from Mark Chae, a professor of counseling at Pillar College, who is not cited anywhere in her dissertation. pic.twitter.com/i3yi3KF0lk

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) May 14, 2024

While MIT has not responded to the allegations, this is coming just as MIT is ending “diversity statement” requirements in hiring.

The accused administrators have not been publicly sanctioned by their universities, which have either declined to comment on the allegations or issued statements in support of the officials. The complaint against Anderson and Jones-Barrett may be harder for MIT to brush aside, however, given the school’s high-profile efforts to distance itself from DEI in the post-October 7 era.

The institute said this month that it would no longer require diversity statements from candidates applying to faculty positions, making it the first elite university to jettison the practice. It also led the way in restoring SAT requirements after many colleges went test-optional in an effort to boost diversity.

The pushback has come largely from MIT faculty and been driven, in part, by a sense that DEI programs excuse and even encourage anti-Semitism. An April article in MIT’s faculty newsletter noted that an event on “Jewish inclusion” had whitewashed the rhetoric of the school’s pro-Palestinian protesters, who have occupied campus buildings, called for “Intifada revolution,” and allegedly chanted “death to Zionists.”

MIT, if you remember, had its president, Sally Kornbluth, on the hot seat in front of Congress at the same time as Claudine Gay and Liz Magill (University of Pennsylvania). Kornbluth, despite her absymal testimony and the horrific anti-Semitism at MIT, is the only one of the three who still has a job. Perhaps that is why she actually cleared her campus of protesters and disciplined students. The protesters then marched to Kornbluth’s home.

MIT is under investigation for Title VI violations, and Jewish students have been targeted on campus, and a lawsuit has been filed on those grounds against the university. So let’s just say that MIT has a whole lot of issues at the moment, and extra scrutiny over the alleged plagiarism of their DEI deans and hires may not be worth it to them.

If the universities want to prove that plagiarism isn’t a massive problem within the entire DEI infrastructure that they are so happy to promote, then audit everyone. If plagiarism is unacceptable for students, then it should be equally unacceptable for faculty as well. But with every single one of these cases, we are seeing intellectual laziness that is being covered up under the cloak of intersectionality. If these faculty members are true scholars, then their work should be able to stand up to academic scrutiny. If this narrative of diversity hires being caught in plagiarism scandals is uncomfortable or inconvenient for academia, then perhaps they should only hire people after checking their work. After all, what have they got to lose?

Featured image: Great Dome at the Massachusetts Insitute of Technology (MIT) by Marco Almbauer on Wikimedia Commons, cropped, public domain