Following allegations that his wife, Neri Oxman, plagiarised parts of her dissertation while working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Billionaire Bill Ackman announced on Friday that he would start examining the work of all current faculty members at the university, including President Sally Kornbluth, for plagiarism.
This comes after a report by Business Insider on January 4 claimed that Oxman's 2010 PhD dissertation at MIT had paragraphs that she copied directly from other authors without citing them.
In response to the report, Oxman took to X (formerly Twitter) to aplogise for the errors and accepted mistakes in the citation of some sources.
At a Congressional hearing last month, former president of Harvard University Claudine Gay, former president of University of Pennsylvania Liz Magill and Kornbluth failed to denounce the calls for genocide against Jews as a breach of university policy. Following this, Ackman emerged as their one of the most vocal opponents.
{{/usCountry}}At a Congressional hearing last month, former president of Harvard University Claudine Gay, former president of University of Pennsylvania Liz Magill and Kornbluth failed to denounce the calls for genocide against Jews as a breach of university policy. Following this, Ackman emerged as their one of the most vocal opponents.
{{/usCountry}}MIT president, staff will be subjected to plagiarism checks, says Ackman
In a post on social platform X, Ackman responding to the Business Insider report said that it is unfortunate that his actions to address problems in higher education have led to the “attacks on my family”. He then said that MIT will review all its staff for plagiarism and vowed to save all news organisations from the trouble of doing plagiarism reviews.
“This experience has inspired me to save all news organizations from the trouble of doing plagiarism reviews. We will begin with a review of the work of all current @MITfaculty members, President Kornbluth, other officers of the Corporation, and its board members for plagiarism,” he said in a tweet.
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After Gay stepped down from the post of Harvard President plagiarism allegations on Tuesday, Ackman tweeted, “Et tu Sally?” in an apparent reference to Kornbluth. Latin phrase “Et tu” means “Also you”.
Fellow Harvard graduate Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who exposed the institutions' antisemitism handling rules during a Congressional hearing through her line of questions, also took to X following Gay's resignation and posted, "TWO DOWN."
However, Kornbluth did not indicate that she intended to resign in a statement released this week. She rather announced a new committee on campus expression and academic freedom as well as new initiatives to investigate the school's treatment of student misconduct accusations.