Judge: A poor citation is not the same as plagiarism
Examination boards must come up with hard evidence before punishing a student for plagiarism. This is evident from a lawsuit filed by an undergraduate student against the University of Groningen. Something similar happened several years ago at the UvA with former rector Dymph van den Boom.
First, she received a failing grade for her thesis in the undergraduate religious studies program. Then, at her retake in August 2023, she was accused of plagiarism as an undergraduate student at the University of Groningen (RUG).
But how serious was it? The exam committee of the RUG speaks of “mid-level” plagiarism: “copying short pieces of text without (clear) source reference, suggesting that someone else's ideas are one's own.” The student must have been warned about this before. Her punishment: She is not allowed to hand in her thesis for the time being and will receive no supervision.
The student appealed to the university but was proven wrong and eventually went to the Council of State. The Council of State sees things differently. The source reference is “open to improvement,” the judges acknowledged. However, “that does not make it plagiarism.”
Not clear
It is not clear to the Administrative Law Division of the Council of State what exactly the student did wrong “and why this constitutes plagiarism, let alone ‘medium plagiarism.’”
The judges asked the examination board repeatedly for explanations during the hearing. “However, they received different and sometimes even contradictory answers to their questions.”
The student rendered the original text in her own words, changed the structure of sentences, and used synonyms. That she “could have been more careful in doing so” may earn her a failing grade or a low grade, according to the judges, but it is not an obvious form of plagiarism.
The benefit of the doubt
“It must be established beyond a reasonable doubt that the student cheated,” the judge said. “In case of doubt, the examination board must give the student the benefit of the doubt.”
The student was thus unfairly penalized. The university must reimburse her nearly €3,000 in costs and make every effort to help her graduate this year, “provided that that thesis is awarded a passing grade.”
Former rector Van den Boom
A similar case played out several years ago at the UvA in the case of former rector magnificus Dymph van den Boom. She was accused in a full-page, sensational story in the NRC (in Dutch) of plagiarism in her Leiden dissertation submitted thirty years earlier. She later also delivered addresses at the UvA. Van den Boom, who at the time of the accusation was working as interim dean of a faculty at Erasmus University, defended herself by saying that there were hardly any rules around plagiarism and that outspoken speeches were not, in her view, forms of scholarly practice. The judge did not get involved, but an external committee did. The committee ruled that there was no plagiarism - the term “medium plagiarism” was not mentioned, either - but that there were “patterns of sloppiness” in her dissertation.
The Council of State appears to be following the same reasoning with this Groningen student that they did concerning scientist Van den Boom: Those who should have been more careful have not necessarily committed plagiarism.
