An Austrian professor known for exposing plagiarism says he identified multiple instances of lifted material by Vice President Kamala Harris in a book she co-authored on crime.
Dr. Stefan Weber, whose past work revealed academic misconduct by German and Austrian politicians and gave him a reputation as a âplagiarism hunter,â found over a dozen instances of lifted material in the book, according to Manhattan Institute writer Christopher Rufo. Passages in the book, published in 2009, were allegedly lifted from several sources, including a NBC News report, a press release from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Urban Institute, Rufo reported.
âWe independently confirmed multiple violations, which are comparable in severity to the plagiarism found in former Harvard president Claudine Gayâs doctoral thesis,â Rufo wrote on X.
Harris allegedly copied material from a 2008 NBC News article, which was not cited, about graduation rates in city schools, Rufo reported. Several paragraphs from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release about efforts to address illegal drug markets were allegedly nearly copied verbatim, while language describing a nonprofit group appeared to be taken from an Urban Institute report.
âIn a section about a New York court program, Harris stole long passages directly from Wikipediaâlong considered an unreliable source,â Rufo wrote. âShe not only assumes the online encyclopediaâs accuracy, but copies its language nearly verbatim, without citing the source.â
Harris also reportedly lifted a description of a crime-ridden neighborhood in West Palm Beach from a Bureau of Justice Assistance report on community court programs, according to Rufo.
âTaken in total, there is certainly a breach of standards here,â Rufo wrote. âHarris and her co-author duplicated long passages nearly verbatim without proper citation and without quotation marks, which is the textbook definition of plagiarism.â
âHarris, like many other public figures, may have relied entirely on a ghostwriter to draft her book,â he wrote. âBut that is not exculpatory: Harris, at the end of the day, put her name on the cover.â
Harris previously came under fire for copying former President Donald Trumpâs âno tax on tipsâ proposal during an August rally in Las Vegas. Trump announced he would end the federal taxation on tips during a June event.
Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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