Social media has been buzzing lately about the fact that a section of Melania Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention was plagiarized from Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech at the Democratic National Convention. When you look at the speeches side by side, there is no denying the rumors are true.
For 36 hours, the Trump campaign denied that any part of Melania’s speech was plagiarized, but then Meredith McIver came forward and acknowledged herself as the speechwriter, apologizing for her mistake. She said she offered her resignation to Donald Trump, but he denied it. He said, “everyone makes mistakes.”
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And this also is true. Everyone does make mistakes. But when you plagiarize the current first lady’s speech during a presidential campaign, mistakes matter, and should be consequential.
At Boston College, and I’m sure most other universities, penalties for plagiarism and other violations of academic integrity can include university probation, suspension or expulsion because the theft of intellectual property is not a crime to be dealt with lightly. Boston College defines plagiarism as "the act of taking the words, ideas, data, illustrations or statements of another person or source, and presenting them as one's own. Each student is responsible for learning and using proper methods of paraphrasing and footnoting, quotation, and other forms of citation, to ensure that the original author, speaker, illustrator, or source of the material used is clearly acknowledged.”
Even if, as McIver claims, she did not check Michelle Obama’s speech to make sure there was a significant distinction between their words, copying the same “ideas” so closely also is considered plagiarism. It is not professional or ethical, two adjectives that ought to describe a presidential campaign.
Meredith McIver aside, one way Melania Trump could have avoided this humiliation would have been to write her own speech. Because regardless of who actually wrote it, she is the one who represents the words read to the public. I have spoken with many individuals on this matter, and I’m usually met with: “Well no one writes their own speeches.” While this may be correct, that does not mean that politicians cannot write their own speeches.
I’m going to pick on Melania for a moment, but only because she made herself the perfect target, not because I have any specific disdain for her. This goes for all politicians.
I’ve heard on the news how well educated Melania Trump is. She speaks five languages: English, Slovenian, French, Serbian and German. This is certainly an intelligent woman we are speaking of. And she is campaigning to hold an extremely powerful and respected position in our country, alongside her husband Donald Trump. Would it be so difficult, then, for such a clearly scholarly woman to take the time to write her own speech? If we were speaking of Trump himself, I might let it slide, because he’s running for president. And though I’m sure Melania has numerous responsibilities during this time, I’d go out on a limb and say her speech in front of the Republican National Convention should have taken top priority.
Even if she’d jotted down a draft or two, and then given them to her speechwriters for editing, she would have escaped this entire plagiarism debacle. She has basically a 50-percent chance of becoming America’s next first lady; shouldn’t she put in a little academic effort?
