Columbia Official Is Accused of Plagiarizing Dissertation From Wikipedia

An official in charge of diversity, equity and inclusion at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center was accused this week of plagiarizing large sections of his doctoral 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 scholars and from Wikipedia, which is written and edited by volunteers from the general public.

The complaint was published online Thursday by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news website that led a campaign last year against the former president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay. She resigned in January following accusations of plagiarism and after her response to antisemitism on campus was criticized.

Plagiarism allegations have rocked the world of elite academia in recent months. They have often had explicitly political overtones, with conservative critics leveling accusations against left-leaning administrators and at least one high-profile accusation that has been portrayed as an act of liberal revenge.

The complaint published online on Thursday accused Mr. McKen of copying passages of his dissertation from the Wikipedia entry for “Afrocentric education” and from the published scholarship or the doctoral dissertations of at least 28 people.

“Is Alade McKen a plagiarist?” the anonymous author of the complaint wrote at the top of page 1. “A small selection of examples from his dissertation are included below to guide your investigation.”