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

[Anonymous]

Even the apology is a lie.

When I was asked to give the commencement speech, I was thrilled by such an honor and I sought advice from respected friends and family about topics I might address.

She was NOT asked to give the commencement speech. EVERY graduating senior can APPLY to give the speech. She applied. Applicants had to submit an outline. She submitted one. From the group who submitted, 57 were chosen to give an oral presentation? One finalist dropped out. 56 gave speeches. Her speech, which according to sources online was almost verbatim the one she delivered at commencement, won. So, at the point where she plagiarized she was one of 56 candidates to give the speech. She may actually have plagiarized early when she created the outline.

Student newspaper makes this clear:

Editor's Note: When asked about Parkash's statement that she was "asked to give the commencement speech," Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, wrote in a message that "all students could submit an application along with a concept." He pointed The Chronicle to the call for Commencement speech applications from February.

Looks like she was also gunning to be a Duke trustee. I don't know if she was selected.
https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2022/03/duke-university-undergraduate-young-trustee-finalists-priya-parkash-board-of-trustees

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty easy to spot plagiarism if you know the student. It's interesting that the student newspaper she was news editor for broke the story, I would assume some of her fellow students looked at the speech and could tell she didn't actually write parts of it. Then all you need to do is google the parts that don't look correct.

Duke has been known as a rich kids from the northeast school for a while.

But would google have caught this? Is the text of the 2014 speech posted online? I still want to know the chain of events that discovered this. So many speeches are unmemorable, it’s really surprising that it was someone who heard them both in real time. Maybe it was someone in her friend/family circle.

[Anonymous]

The dukes killed so many already. This is perfect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty easy to spot plagiarism if you know the student. It's interesting that the student newspaper she was news editor for broke the story, I would assume some of her fellow students looked at the speech and could tell she didn't actually write parts of it. Then all you need to do is google the parts that don't look correct.

Duke has been known as a rich kids from the northeast school for a while.

But would google have caught this? Is the text of the 2014 speech posted online? I still want to know the chain of events that discovered this. So many speeches are unmemorable, it’s really surprising that it was someone who heard them both in real time. Maybe it was someone in her friend/family circle.

It is online. No idea how she zeroed in on this speech and found it, but with a name and date it's now easy to google. It's hard to say, knowing the truth, but the phrasing is pretty clunky and doesn't fully translate. Like would wearing Duke paraphernalia really speed someone through a customs security line? To the extent that she tells stories that just don't ring true, someone might start poking around. Is it possible the old speech is better known in international communities? in which case she may imagine she has a unique awareness of it, but someone else in the audience would too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even the apology is a lie.

When I was asked to give the commencement speech, I was thrilled by such an honor and I sought advice from respected friends and family about topics I might address.

She was NOT asked to give the commencement speech. EVERY graduating senior can APPLY to give the speech. She applied. Applicants had to submit an outline. She submitted one. From the group who submitted, 57 were chosen to give an oral presentation? One finalist dropped out. 56 gave speeches. Her speech, which according to sources online was almost verbatim the one she delivered at commencement, won. So, at the point where she plagiarized she was one of 56 candidates to give the speech. She may actually have plagiarized early when she created the outline.

Student newspaper makes this clear:

Editor's Note: When asked about Parkash's statement that she was "asked to give the commencement speech," Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, wrote in a message that "all students could submit an application along with a concept." He pointed The Chronicle to the call for Commencement speech applications from February.

Looks like she was also gunning to be a Duke trustee. I don't know if she was selected.
https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2022/03/duke-university-undergraduate-young-trustee-finalists-priya-parkash-board-of-trustees

like it makes sense for a recent grad to serve on the Board of Trustees. Eyeroll

[Anonymous]

They all sound the same to me. It’s fairly difficult to come up with something that hasn't been done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty easy to spot plagiarism if you know the student. It's interesting that the student newspaper she was news editor for broke the story, I would assume some of her fellow students looked at the speech and could tell she didn't actually write parts of it. Then all you need to do is google the parts that don't look correct.

Duke has been known as a rich kids from the northeast school for a while.

But would google have caught this? Is the text of the 2014 speech posted online? I still want to know the chain of events that discovered this. So many speeches are unmemorable, it’s really surprising that it was someone who heard them both in real time. Maybe it was someone in her friend/family circle.

Someone probably had a thing against her. Must have run her speech online to check for plagiarism and hit the jackpot. Seriously though, who really cares about these speeches to such an extent as to remember speeches from another school from years ago! It's more important to see how this speech was received by the crowd. If it went over well, it's a success, regardless of the plagiarism. The message (the original message) just reached a new audience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So on brand for Duke.

I had to LOL, because this is exactly what my DC said when I mentioned this story to them.

[Anonymous]

All those speeches are dumb and annoying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It is a bit of surprise that they don’t check these things. When I worked on the Hill, we ran all speeches through software that checked for plagiarism (and this was more than a decade ago).

I'd be curious to know if a plagiarism algorithm would catch it. She actually worked very hard rearranging every phrase. The side by side, makes it clear she didn't just regurgitate something that had been shared with her, but labored over hiding the origins. She better have the PR firm working up responses to whatever's about to be discovered in the rest of her published work.

Nowadays it is very easy to check thanks to AI, similar words/terms have the same weights when checking. Those softwares are pretty smart now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It is a bit of surprise that they don’t check these things. When I worked on the Hill, we ran all speeches through software that checked for plagiarism (and this was more than a decade ago).

I'd be curious to know if a plagiarism algorithm would catch it. She actually worked very hard rearranging every phrase. The side by side, makes it clear she didn't just regurgitate something that had been shared with her, but labored over hiding the origins. She better have the PR firm working up responses to whatever's about to be discovered in the rest of her published work.

Nowadays it is very easy to check thanks to AI, similar words/terms have the same weights when checking. Those softwares are pretty smart now.

Right but do those things include speeches that are given, but the text not published someplace? Is someone transcribing random commencement speeches so text?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It is a bit of surprise that they don’t check these things. When I worked on the Hill, we ran all speeches through software that checked for plagiarism (and this was more than a decade ago).

I'd be curious to know if a plagiarism algorithm would catch it. She actually worked very hard rearranging every phrase. The side by side, makes it clear she didn't just regurgitate something that had been shared with her, but labored over hiding the origins. She better have the PR firm working up responses to whatever's about to be discovered in the rest of her published work.

Nowadays it is very easy to check thanks to AI, similar words/terms have the same weights when checking. Those softwares are pretty smart now.

Yes, but every reference to Harvard is changed to Duke. That's not a thesaurus entry, nope.

[Anonymous]

It must be a different kind of person than me who wants to give a sppech. I'd be happier zoning out in row 17 at my graduation.

[Anonymous]

Who paid for her college? Duke cost of attendance is approx $80,000 a year, so that's over $300,000 for a bachelor's. Who paid for it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who paid for her college? Duke cost of attendance is approx $80,000 a year, so that's over $300,000 for a bachelor's. Who paid for it?

She may have gotten financial aid and/or taken out loans. Not sure this is the crux of the issue.