Complaint accuses UW–Madison chief diversity officer of plagiarism

The chief diversity officer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison was reportedly accused of research misconduct by an anonymous complaint on March 20.

The complaint was filed with the university and shared online by The Washington Free Beacon. The document accuses the school’s DEI chief, LaVar Charleston, of passing off old studies as new research, constituting research misconduct.

[RELATED: Anti-plagiarism policies ‘harm Black and Latinx students,’ professor argues]

Rutgers University psychology professor Lee Jussim told the Free Beacon that the likelihood that two people would provide the same quotes from different studies was comparable to “monkeys typing on typewriters would reproduce Hamlet.”

The complaint, which is over 90 pages long, lists dozens of instances where Charleston allegedly conducted research misconduct, including copying the work of other authors.

Most of the alleged misconduct, however, involves Charleston reusing work that he had previously published, seemingly passing it off as new research in an attempt to bolster his resume.

“Much of LaVar’s scholarly work since the dissertation lifts language from the dissertation verbatim,” the complaint states. “But the dissertation is full of plagiarism. So Lavar’s peer-reviewed work has plagiarism throughout.”

“This is an extraordinary case of serial misrepresentation and deception,” Peter Wood, the president of the National Association of Scholars, reportedly stated. “The closest analogy would be someone who sells the same real estate to five different buyers, all of whom are unaware of the others.”

“I know of no other cases where a researcher has simply repeated his dissertation findings like a broken record for twelve years,” Wood continued.

“It is academic misconduct to publish essentially the same paper twice with no acknowledgment of the duplication,” Bucknell University sociology professor Alexander Riley told the Free Beacon. “It seems fairly clear that Charleston is gaming the system in order to get more on his CV than is merited by the amount of research he has actually done.”

UW–Madison told the Free Beacon that it “takes all allegations of research misconduct seriously” and plans to investigate the complaint against Charleston. The school also referred to him as a “valued member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison leadership team and we continue to support his work.”

Charleston is not the first DEI official at a major university to be accused of plagiarism in recent months.

As Campus Reform has previously reported, the former president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, also faced such allegations before her resignation in January. By the time she left office, Gay was facing nearly 50 allegations of plagiarism.

[RELATED: Another Harvard employee accused of plagiarism: ‘Especially worrisome’]

Last month, the DEI chief of Columbia University’s medical center was also accused of extensive plagiarizing from multiple authors, including Wikipedia.

Campus Reform has contacted the University of Wisconsin–Madison and LaVar Charleston for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.