Purdue University President Mitch Daniels is facing accusations of academic dishonesty over a public statement he released last week criticizing anti-war historian Howard Zinn.
The statement, released on July 17 in response to emails that surfaced last week revealing that Daniels wanted to remove Zinn’s material from Indiana public schools when he was governor of the state, included a number of criticisms of the late historian that bear resemblance to material from both a 2010 article in Reason magazine and a release from Stanford University late last year. Now some are arguing that he used the material without providing proper attribution, but Daniels insisted that his words are his own.
“Look, if there’s anything I do, I write my own stuff,” Daniels said, as quoted by the Journal & Courier. “All of it. I always have — 75,000-word books, speeches, everything.”
Unlike the original release provided to reporters, the statement on Purdue’s website no longer contains the words of Stanford University professor and a pair of other scholars who were quoted. Daniels said he removed the quote from Stanford history education professor Sam Wineburg because he was upset that his words had been used in the release, but it is unclear why the other edits were made.
Aaron Hoover, a member of the Society for an Open Accountable Purdue and an adjunct English composition instructor, went as far to say that Daniels is guilty of plagiarism.
“It’s a clear violation of academic integrity, and there’s no way to spin it,” Hoover told the Journal & Courier.
