How could you, Monica Crowley? Well, at least you are in good company. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. plagiarized portions of his Boston University dissertation:
A committee of scholars appointed by Boston University concluded today [10 October 1991] that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. plagiarized passages in his dissertation for a doctoral degree at the university 36 years ago.
[. . .]
"There is no question," the committee said in a report to the university's provost, "but that Dr. King plagiarized in the dissertation by appropriating material from sources not explicitly credited in notes, or mistakenly credited, or credited generally and at some distance in the text from a close paraphrase or verbatim quotation."
[. . .]
The dissertation at issue is "A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman." Dr. King wrote it in 1955 as part of his requirements for a doctor of philosophy degree, which he subsequently received from the university's Division of Religious and Theological Studies.
Does King's plagiarism disqualify him from being honored? No. He was a great civil rights leader and he died in the service of his cause.
Crowley's plagiarism appears to have been much worse than King's.
Every man has his 'wobble' as I like to say, and every woman too. If we honored only those who are in all respects honorable we would honor no mortal.
If truth be told, no one of us is all that admirable, although some of us are more admirable than others.
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