Kamala Harris in plagiarising row as she's accused of 'stealing' from Martin Luther King and Wikipedia
15 October 2024, 15:08
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has been caught in the middle of a plagiarism row with only 21 days until the US presidential elections.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
Harris has been accused of plagiarism in a book she wrote that helped launch her political career.
A bombshell report from famed ‘plagiarism-hunter’ Stefan Weber claimed that several passages in the book she co-authored had been lifted from other sources without proper citations.
‘Smart on Crime’ is the first book Harris wrote, together with Joan O’C. Hamilton, in 2009 - a year before she became California attorney general.
The new 49-page report details a total of 27 instances where the presidential candidate lifted passages directly from Wikipedia, press releases and reports without acknowledging or attributing her sources.
Of the allegations, perhaps the most striking is an anecdote Harris wrote about her childhood, which bears resemblance to a story told by civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr in 1965.
In the preface of her book, Harris wrote: “My mother used to laugh when she told the story about a time I was fussing as a toddler. She leaned down to ask me: ‘Kamala, what’s wrong? What do you want?’ and I wailed back, ‘Fweedom’.”
In an interview with Playboy Magazine, Martin Luther King shares the following story: “I will never forget a moment in Birmingham when a white policeman accosted a little Negro girl, seven or eight years old, who was walking in a demonstration with her mother.
“‘What do you want?’ the policeman asked her gruffly, and the little girl looked at him straight in the eye and answered, ‘Fee-dom’.”
Harris campaign spokesman James Singer said: “This is a book that’s been out for 15 years, and the vice president clearly cited sources and statistics in footnotes and endnotes throughout.”
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has seized the opportunity to mock Harris on social media.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said: “Yikes! More evidence that Kamala Harris is a fraud!!!”
JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential candidate slammed Harris in a post on X, saying: “Lmao Kamala didn’t even write her own book!”
In a separate post, he said: “Hi, I’m JD Vance. I wrote my own book, unlike Kamala Harris, who copied hers from Wikipedia.”
