Duke Senior’s Commencement Speech Appears to Plagiarize 2014 Address by Harvard Student

[Anonymous]

Did she really claim to be from poverty? Because one look at her perfect teeth indicates she's had access to pricey orthodontia all of her life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a sad state of things when an administrator would have to think of running a plagiarism check on the college grad speaker.

It should be routine. Kids high school papers are all checked I assumed that continued through college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did she really claim to be from poverty? Because one look at her perfect teeth indicates she's had access to pricey orthodontia all of her life.

Her accent gives away her family wealth

[Anonymous]

I don't know about the rest of it but I wouldn't judge someone's background based on their accent. A friend is a refugee from a non English speaking country. Her accent in English is perfect, she sounds like a well-educated midwesterner, but only because her family was desperate to put their experience in their native country behind them and devoted in outsized share of resources to being sure there children spoke unaccented English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did they say how anyone made the connection?

I bet there were people there who also were at the Harvard commencement in 2014...grad students who went to Harvard undergrad, faculty who were affiliated w/harvard at the time, siblings who attended Harvard (or their parents), etc.

My guess is that someone (a previous professor or TA?) suspected her of cheating or plagiarism in the past. So they got ahold of her speech then start plugging key sentences into the Google machine. Bingo.

Then they send an anonymous tip into local or national media. It's a juicy story - everyone loves to drag down a dishonest striver.

[Anonymous]

The irony is that if she were like my kids who couldn't be bothered putting in the effort to be strivers, she'd be fine today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The irony is that if she were like my kids who couldn't be bothered putting in the effort to be strivers, she'd be fine today.

Here's the thing - she's likely been getting away with this forever. No way this is her first rodeo at cheating, copying, and plagiarizing.

She finally got caught because she did it on too big of a stage. Her scheming has worked in the classroom and offices for many years. In short, she believed her own bullsh#t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The irony is that if she were like my kids who couldn't be bothered putting in the effort to be strivers, she'd be fine today.

Here's the thing - she's likely been getting away with this forever. No way this is her first rodeo at cheating, copying, and plagiarizing.

She finally got caught because she did it on too big of a stage. Her scheming has worked in the classroom and offices for many years. In short, she believed her own bullsh#t.

See also Mackenzie Fierceton.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-dredging

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The irony is that if she were like my kids who couldn't be bothered putting in the effort to be strivers, she'd be fine today.

I agree

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My siblings used to always say the biggest cheaters they met were the top honors/cutthroat competitive kids. They had things written on their hands, outright copied, etc.

Our Valedictorian was kicked out of UVA for cheating/violating the honor code.

I remember taking an organic chem final exam in college (big lecture hall) and the proctors kept staring at me and walking around making me nervous, turns out the student next to me was cheating off of me. They nabbed her after class.

I read the article and there was just too many similarities for this Duke Senior to be a 'mistake'. I'm just surprised that something that public someone would copy.

As a TJ parent, this hits close to home. Its been incredible seeing how cheating is open secret for some groups of kids. I drove carpool for a new group of kids and it was very disturbing overhearing how nonchalant these students were about falsifying data for science fair projects.

[Anonymous]

I mean i just briefly listened to both their speaks and sadly I think our Duke copy cat really didn't even grasp the gist of what Abushaar was saying! Maaaajor schadenfreude over here! Cheating strivers boil my blood.

[Anonymous]

speeches*

[Anonymous]

To its credit, it's the Duke school newspaper which carried the story first.

Apparently Duke required those who wanted to give the speech to submit an outline. The decision as to which speech would be given was based on the outline. So, the exact speech wasn't submitted for preapproval.

[Anonymous]

I really want to know more about her family now. How rich is she exactly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody else think both speeches sound meandering and boring?

Yes…