US Vice President and former district attorney Kamala Harris has been accused of plagiarism in her 2009 book on policing.
A ‘plagiarism hunter’ named Stefan Weber has accused US Vice President Kamala Harris of plagiarizing from numerous sources in her 2009 book on policing, “Smart on Crime,” co-authored with Joan O’C Hamilton. Weber claims Harris copied at least 24 passages from other authors, as well as three instances of “self-plagiarism” from previous work.
Weber states on his website that he cannot definitively say whether Harris herself plagiarized or if it was her ghostwriter or team. He leaves the “conclusions” to others.
Conservative activist Chris Rufo has also published accusations against Harris, highlighting several instances of passages appearing to be directly copied from other sources. These sources included Wikipedia, an NBC News report, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release, and a Bureau of Justice Assistance report.
“There is certainly a breach of standards here. Harris and her co-author duplicated long passages nearly verbatim without proper citation and without quotation marks, which is the textbook definition of plagiarism,” Rufo stated.
While Harris may have used a ghostwriter for the book, Rufo points out that she is ultimately responsible for the plagiarism as her name appears on the book’s cover. He calls on Harris and the publisher to retract the copied passages and issue a correction.
“There should be a single standard – and Kamala Harris is falling short,” Rufo concluded.
Harris has not commented on these allegations, but her campaign has denied the claims, stating that the book “clearly cited sources and statistics in footnotes and endnotes throughout.”