Robin DiAngelo, 'White Fragility' author, accused of plagiarizing minority academics
The author of “White Fragility” has an “Accountability Statement” on her website in which she says giving credit to minorities for their ideas is a “basic” step for “personal accountability.”
DiAngelo self-identifies as white.
The author of “White Fragility” has been accused of plagiarism in her dissertation by a new complaint obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The complaint outlines twenty pages of what it says are examples of Robin DiAngelo paraphrasing or directly quoting sources in her 2004 dissertation without proper attribution. DiAngelo received her P.h.D from the University of Washington in multicultural education. Her dissertation is titled “Whiteness in Racial Dialogue: A Discourse Analysis.”
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In her dissertation, according to the Washington Free Beacon, DiAngelo took two paragraphs from Northeastern University professor Thomas Nakayama and co-author Robert Krizek without properly attributing them.
DiAngelo also used material from University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Stacey Lee without proper attribution.
DiAngelo is well-known “anti-racist,” the author of such works as “White Fragility: Why Understanding Racism Can Be So Hard For White People” and “What Does It Mean To Be White: Developing White Racial Literacy.” The proponent of “Critical Race Theory” also has a section on her website titled “Accountability Statement.”
“White people are not outside of race and our voices and perspectives on racism and antiracism are critical,” DiAngelo writes. “All too often, we have been a missing piece of the puzzle. Only engaging with Black, Indigenous and Peoples of Color’s perspectives reinforces the idea that white people are outside of race and that racism is not a white problem. But the foundation of our education must be rooted in the voices and perspectives of Black, Indigenous and Peoples of Color. We will never understand racism in isolation.”
On her list of “basics” of “personal accountability” is the following: “Always cite and give credit to the work of BIPOC people who have informed your thinking. When you use a phrase or idea you got from a BIPOC person, credit them.”
Several of the researchers DiAngelo is accused of plagiarizing are minorities. DiAngelo self-identifies as white.
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Over the last decade, Campus Reform has reported DiAngelo’s influence in higher education. For example, DiAngelo appeared at a “White Privilege Symposium” at Viterbo University in 2021. She has also been paid thousands of dollars to speak at Purdue University about how she tries to be “less white” and at the University of Wisconsin at Madison to talk about the racist effects of the pandemic.
Campus Reform contacted DiAngelo, asking for her response to the plagiarism accusations, and the University of Washington for comment. This story will be updated accordingly.
