… discovers that significant portions of his BA thesis have been lifted, unattributed, by two South African academics.
… Alex Park ’09… discovered parts of his Sociology senior thesis “A Tale of Two Townships: Political Opportunity and Violent and Non-Violent Local Control in South Africa” were unattributed seven times in a University of Johannesburg paper titled “Khutsong and Xenophobic Violence: Exploring the Case of the Dog That Didn’t Bark.”
The Johannesburg article is co-authored by two figures in the university’s Centre for Sociological Research. One of the authors is a Harvard graduate and a doctorate, Park and his Macalester advisor Erik Larson said, but it is unknown as to which author improperly used Park’s work.
Park learned of the incident this summer while searching for any references of his paper that might have been made…
Park’s thesis director complained to the publisher, who pulled the piece and then republished it after the authors provided citations.