Complaint Accuses Columbia DEI Chief of Extensive Plagiarism
A diversity and equity leader at Columbia University, who pursued a doctorate degree from Iowa State University in 2021, has been accused of plagiarizing over 30 authors—and the publicly-edited website Wikipedia—in his dissertation.
On Wednesday, an anonymous complaint was filed against Alade McKen, the chief DEI officer at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. According to a report from The Washington Free Beacon, the complaint, which was submitted to Columbia University, accuses McKen of yoinking passages from a slew of authors for his 2021 doctoral dissertation “UBUNTU” I am because we are: A case study examining the experiences of an African-centered Rites of Passage program within a community-based organization.
The 55-page complaint lists dozens of examples, highlighted in yellow, where McKen allegedly engaged in plagiarism.
“It is dismantling white epistemic logic, removing the centering of the oppressor’s historical lens, and lifting the Black perspective voices. To be clear, I am not arguing for an essentialization of African culture and Blackness; Blackness and Black people are complex and multifaceted, but I am interested in the historical narratives that throw away the Eurocentric ways we think about Black people throughout history,” McKen wrote in his dissertation.
According to the complaint, the DEI officer did not cite Black History is Not American History: Toward a Framework of Black Historical Consciousness by LaGarrett J. King in the bibliography of his dissertation, even though the words are pretty similar.
“In dismantling white epistemic logic, we should ask the question: are we developing Black history through the oppressor’s historical lens, or do our histories represent and center Black perspectives and voices? To be clear, I am not arguing for an essentialization of Blackness; Blackness and Black people are complex and multifaceted; but I am interested in throwing away the Eurocentric ways we think about Black people throughout history. Black history constructed in such a way is essentially foreign to Black people’s existence,” reads the 2020 piece by King, according to the complaint.
The complaint also alleged McKen wrote “identical” claims to archived articles from Wikipedia, which were also never listed in the bibliography of his dissertation.
The complaint about McKen comes after a series of other Black Ivy League staffers have been accused of plagiarism. Former Harvard president Claudine Gay resigned from her position following a plagiarism controversy in January for work she was accused of copying over 20 years ago.
That same month, Harvard DEI officer Sherri Charleston was accused of plagiarizing her University of Michigan dissertation from 2014, and, in February, an anonymous complaint alleged Harvard administrator Shirley Greene plagiarized her dissertation from the University of Michigan in 2008, according to The Harvard Crimson.
In a statement to The Daily Beast, a Columbia University Irving Medical Center spokesperson said the university “has clear standards and policies regarding academic ethics and integrity for all members of [its] community.”
“We take allegations about misconduct seriously,” they said. “In keeping with University policy, we do not comment on the details of individual personnel matters.”
The university declined to say if it was investigating the matter.
McKen did not immediately return The Daily Beast’s request for comment Thursday.
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