White Fragility’ author Robin DiAngelo accused of plagiarizing minority scholars in Ph.D thesis
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Robin DiAngelo, the author and “anti-racism consultant” who rose to fame and made a fortune scolding white people for their inherent bigotry, has been accused of ripping off the work of two Asian American scholars in her 2004 doctoral thesis.
A complaint filed with the University of Washington and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon outlines 20 examples of alleged plagiarism in the “White Fragility” author’s dissertation, “Whiteness in Racial Dialogue: A Discourse Analysis.”
Among the examples cited are two paragraphs reproduced almost entirely from Northeastern University’s Thomas Nakayama — who is Asian-American — and coauthor Robert Krizek, in which DiAngelo fails to provide adequate attribution.
Another example in the complaint shows DiAngelo allegedly playing fast and loose with a paragraph written by Asian-American professor Stacey Lee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In it, rather than clearly delineating that Lee had summarized the work of scholar David Theo Goldberg, the information was presented in such a way to appear as though DiAngelo herself was providing the summary herself.
National Association of Scholars President Peter Wood told the Beacon that such a move in academic circles is tantamount to “forgery.”
“It is never appropriate to use the secondary source without acknowledging it, and even worse to present it as one’s own words,” said the ex-Boston University provost. “That’s plagiarism.”
On her own website’s “ accountability statement ,” DiAngelo goes into great detail about how she claims to hold herself accountable in a variety of different contexts when it comes to her business and personal dealings with nonwhites.
“Always cite and give credit to the work of BIPOC [black, indigenous and people of color] people who have informed your thinking,” sh
“When you use a phrase or idea you got from a BIPOC person, credit them.”
As the Beacon points out, DiAngelo’s status as a doctor and her Ph.D in multicultural education have been key to promoting her book, her high-dollar speaking engagements and her therapeutic seminars where attendees pay up to $40,000 a head to hear all about how racist they are.
She’s often formally referred to either as “Dr. Robin DiAngelo” or “Robin DiAngelo, PhD” in marketing materials, including the header of her own website, where she claims to have coined the term “white fragility” in a 2011 academic article.
The allegations against DiAngelo follow a rash of recent similar accusations raised in the highest levels of American academia.
Former Harvard President Claudine Gay faced dozens of plagiarism accusations before resigning in disgrace in January . Her Columbia University counterpart, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, who resigned earlier this month following a spate of anti-Israel protests on her campus, came under fire for allegedly screwing a former underling out of credit in a 1994 research paper.
DiAngelo’s controversial “White Fragility” was barely noticed upon publication in 2018, but became a New York Times best-seller in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in 2020. During that time, DiAngelo made regular TV appearances and hosted frequent paid speaking gigs.
As popular as the book became when the national spotlight was squarely fixed on issues of race, it had plenty of critics. Journalist and author Matt Taibbi called it “pseudo-intellectual horsesh–,” and linguist John McWhorter said the book amounted to “a racist tract” in an article for The Atlantic.
DiAngelo did not respond to The Post’s request for comment sent through her website contact form.
Asked about the veracity of the complaint, University of Washington spokeswoman Dana Robinson Slote told The Post, “We are committed to the integrity of research conducted at the University of Washington. All complaints are carefully reviewed.”
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Her work was such an obvious grift from the get-go that I doubt anyone can be surprised. In a field filled with idiots pushing nonsense (see Ibham Kendi), she really stood out for her racialist self flagellation. Unsurprisingly, it became a huge hit in college classrooms and the must read for rich, trendy white liberals.
How this racialist crap was ever taken seriously by anyone will be one of the great mysteries future historians will have to puzzle out.
Tyler Austin Harper summed it up: " What I have always found fascinating about DiAngelo—who was quite transparently a moron doing garbage work—is that so many smart people read White Fragility and took it seriously. Watching intelligent people be hoodwinked by an obvious kook was a lesson in ideological hysteria."
This author is not honest so that means white racism doesnt exist.
Sound MAGA thinking.
Talk about sound thinking, you can drive a freight train through the gaps in that logic.
If she plagiarized something about fly fishing would you have seeded it?
If Harris flip flops on issues, will you be seeding an article about it?
do books about fly fishing become dominate drivers of political narratives?
I dont think Robin D'Angelo invented criticism of racism.
No, but she might have one of the first to become more racially obsessed than the racists she didn't like and who could charge $15,000 an hour to explain her obsessions to the rich and gullible. Her books became best sellers and were widely used to educate university students and popularized an aggressively racist world view that became the dominant ideological prism through the which the far left viewed pretty much every aspect of society.
Apparently you are not a capitalist anymore? That is the money spot. Get in, stay as long as possible peddling whatever type of bullshit one does. DJT does it everyday.
What? It is wrong now to sell snake oil?
An unsupported statement.
Exactly, any honest assessment would acknowledge that racism is an international experience with some sort of expression in most countries of the world.
As long as there are different races there will be some people complaining about racism