University president accused of race-based hiring under fire for alleged plagiarism

A university professor has come under scrutiny for allegedly plagiarizing large portions of her doctoral dissertation.

Heidi Anderson, president of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, is accused of recycling the work of others without citation in her 1986 doctoral dissertation on computers in pharmaceutical education.

Much of the alleged plagiarism comes from a paper published two years earlier by Donna E. Larson, a nursing professor. Anderson’s paper appears to use large swaths of Larson’s work, including the majority of the citations that Larson used. She does not, however, use the citation Larson added referencing her previous work, nor is Larson mentioned anywhere else in the piece.

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Various other sections of the paper appear to copy a summary of a book by Christopher Evans, a paper from medical professor Robert M. Caldwell, and several others.

The alleged plagiarism was discovered by Donna Satterlee, a former professor who was fired from the school in what she says was an instance of racial targeting. She is now suing the school for race-based discrimination, harassment, and disparate treatment, among other wrongdoings.

Satterlee told Campus Reform that she discovered the similarities between Anderson’s work and others’ by using Turnitin, plagiarism detection software typically used by professors when evaluating the legitimacy of students’ work.

Satterlee ripped the school and its administrators in a statement to Campus Reform, saying, “It is appalling for a university president to be caught plagiarizing whole paragraphs and ideas from others without attribution. This does not require any costly and long investigation. Any ordinary citizen can recognize shameless cheating and fraud when they see what Heidi Anderson has done. If Jay Perman and the USM Board of Regents can’t see it, there must be questions asked about their suitability for the job. Heidi Anderson should have to repay taxpayers the millions she has taken from us based on fraud.”

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

She also directly confronted the Board of Regents in an email obtained exclusively by Campus Reform, saying that the plagiarism “shows a total lack of integrity” and pointed out that other schools “have fired university presidents for far less plagiarism than is found here.”

Anderson responded to the allegations in a statement released on Oct. 6, saying, “Integrity, accountability, and trust are the foundations of my leadership, and I take these concerns with the utmost seriousness. Consistent with University of Maryland policy, there will be an assessment of these allegations.”

The school does indeed have a policy that claims to take academic dishonesty seriously, including cases committed by faculty. 

“All members of our academic communities–students, faculty, staff, administrators, post-doctoral trainees, and other academic professionals–share responsibility to promote and maintain the highest level of integrity across the academic experience,” the policy states. “All members of the community shall make all reasonable efforts to promote academic integrity and, by their own example, refrain from acts of academic misconduct themselves.”

This is not the first plagiarism scandal that has rocked the University System of Maryland. Darryll Pines, the president of University of Maryland, College Park, allegedly copied 1,500 words of his paper from a tutorial website, according to a Campus Reform report. 

The investigation is still ongoing, according to The Baltimore Banner.

All relevant parties have been contacted for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

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