Lincoln University's 2015 commencement speaker appears to have used the wit and wisdom of others - without using attribution.
Patricia Russell-McCloud, an Atlanta motivational speaker and attorney, received a standing ovation from roaring LU graduates - and many of their loved ones in the audience - after her nearly 20-minute speech Saturday at Dwight T. Reed Stadium. The college also gave her an honorary degree.
But, some of the things she said have been attributed previously to authors and poets, famous people, an inventor and even a church pastor, but she failed to cite them in her speech.
Plagiarism is using the words or ideas of another person as if they were your own words or ideas.
Compare passages and listen to the speech:
[http://www.newstrib…">Eight parts of speech were said previously (includes audio), http://www.newstrib…">Eight parts of speech were said previously (includes audio)]Using Internet searches, the News Tribune found eight instances within the speech that were previously said or written by other people. In most of the instances, Russell-McCloud's wording was either very similar - or in some cases almost exact - to that of passages found online.
Russell-McCloud did not respond to an interview request by the News Tribune. When contacted by a reporter Thursday morning, she said she would review the materials the News Tribune emailed her and call back a reporter. By press time Thursday evening, she had not called back.
LU President Kevin Rome, who is out of the country, said in an email Thursday night: "I believe that the speech was quite inspirational. I am not aware of how professional speakers give attribution for others in their speeches. I do not believe that it was Russell-McCloud's intention to deceive our campus as I had heard some of those points from various speakers in the past.
"I believe that credit should be given to the originators of thought as when one writes a piece. Unfortunately, this didn't occur and it's a lesson learned for Lincoln University. But the main focus should be the beauty of the day and the approximately 400 students who worked very diligently to achieve their degrees from Lincoln University."
Earlier in the day, LU spokeswoman Misty Young said in an emailed statement: "In this current age, speakers and speech writers draw inspiration from varied sources. This should not be considered an attempt to pass off original thoughts as one's own, but understood as a new way of sharing ideas."
Young did not respond to requests inquiring how much LU paid Russell-McCloud for her speech.
LU's College of Arts and Letters did not respond to phone and email inquiries to discuss the ethics of attribution at graduation speeches. But Sandy Davidson, a University of Missouri professor who teaches media law, spoke to the News Tribune about the issue.
Davidson said commencement speakers - just like journalists and academics - should attribute parts of their speeches they use from other sources. Failing to do so is "a form of intellectual theft," she said.
"I think people should do what I call "due diligence,'" she said. "If they've got some words circling around their minds and think that perhaps somebody else said that phrase - somebody famous in particular - they should use due diligence. In this era of the Internet, it's so easy - just Google it. My standard is: If in doubt, use attribution."
If people recognize parts of a speech as someone else's words, they'll probably think less of that speaker, Davidson said. And worse, it could be a legal issue of copyright infringement, she said.
Even if the person whose words you are using gives you permission, your audience still deserves to know that you're using someone else's material, Davidson said.
"I think it's important to remember there are people out there with websites that delight in exposing plagiarism. So the risks are heightened now," she said.
"It does tarnish a reputation if a person becomes known as a plagiarist," she added. "That's not what you want on your résumé."
That's what happened to Vice President Joe Biden in 1987, she said, when Biden used the words of British politician Neal Kinnock without attribution, leaving Biden open to attack ads by rival Michael Dukakis.
Several U.S. graduation speakers were accused of - or admitted to - plagiarism last year. The Washington Times reported a Massachusetts school superintendent was docked a week's pay for plagiarism in a pair of 2014 graduation speeches. The Boston Globe reported a Mansfield, Massachusetts, superintendent resigned after complaints she plagiarized a graduation speech.
The LU graduation program billed Russell-McCloud as an "unforgettable" speaker who "is categorized as being one of the nation's best. Her speaking style is engaging, highly substantive, well-researched, pertinent to her audiences, and entertaining ... ."
It said she speaks to more than 200,000 people a year, with clients including AARP, AT&T, Wal-Mart/Sam's Club, General Motors, McDonalds, General Electric and Procter & Gamble.
The program said she was named one of the top five business motivators in the country by Black Enterprise Magazine.
Side-by-side comparison
Definition of man by the late inventor/architect R. Buckminster Fuller, according to The History Guide: Lectures on Early Modern European History (www.historyguide.org/earlymod/lecture10c.html):
"Man is a self-balancing, 28-jointed adapter-base biped, and electro-chemical reduction plant, integral with the segregated stowages of special energy extracts in storage batteries, for subsequent activation of thousands of hydraulic and pneumatic pumps, with motors attached; 62,000 miles of capillaries, millions of warning signal, railroad and conveyor systems, crushers and cranes, and a universally distributed telephone system needing no service for seventy years if well managed, the whole extraordinary complex mechanism guided with exquisite precision from a turret in which are located telescopic and microscopic self-registering and recording range-finders, a spectroscope, etc."
Quote from Patricia Russell-McCloud's commencement speech:
"So I work a lot for NASA, and I told them I was coming here to graduation, be the commencement speaker, and I said, I want to know about the human mind. So the physicist told me to tell you that the mind is a self-balancing 28 jointed adaptive base biped. The mind has an eletro-chemical reduction plant that's integrated with segregated states of special energy abstract with storage batteries. The mind has a subsequent activation system with hydrological pumps with motors attached. The mind has a subsequent activation system with hydraulic pumps. It's guided with exquisite precision. It has a telescopic and a microscopic rangefinder. It has a spectroscope with a main fuel intake and exhaust system."
Compare passages and listen to the speech:
Eight parts of speech were said previously (includes audio of speech)