Originally Posted by
niveklaen
I have a somewhat related story from my time at Duke that I would like to share.
I took a creative writing class in my 3rd year where I wrote a number of essays that explained why I disagreed with various concepts that I was being taught about in other classes. The teacher became convinced that I was recycling papers that I had written for these other classes - which, to my understanding, would have been an ethics code violation. The teacher ended up sharing those papers with my other professors to confirm whether or not they were recycled. My other teachers expressed reactions ranging from bemused to confounded as I tried to avoid being contrary in my assignments/classroom comments.
If it is university practice to double check recycling upon suspicion, then I think it reasonable to double-check this speaker's papers for plagiarism too. If this student did not plagiarize work for their courses then I don't think pulling the diploma would be appropriate.
As I expressed upthread, based on my kids' experiences at other schools, I would think all papers at Duke are submitted through a program that automatically checks for plagiarism.
Rich
"Failure is Not a Destination"
Coach K on the Dan Patrick Show, December 22, 2016