17 cases of plagiarism and still no action from Auckland University

The credibility of Auckland University is seeping away, with their refusal to even use a wet bust ticket against faculty member Witi Ihimaera. It has been revealed he also had at least one case of plagiarism in The Matriach:

His comments follow further claims by Professor Keith Sorrenson, a University of Auckland emeritus history professor, that Ihimaera plagiarised his work in the award-winning novel The Matriarch and later apologised to him.

Professor Sorrenson says the latest plagiarism row – in which Professor Ihimaera has admitted using unattributed material from 16 other authors in his latest book, The Trowenna Sea – showed he had “learnt nothing” from the earlier incident.

I hope someone somewhere is running all his books through a checker. The defence we keep hearing is:

He has apologised for the “errors” but said the unacknowledged work in The Trowenna Sea was only 0.4 per cent of the 528-page book.

But that stat is ir-relevant. What is more important is that in the latest book he did it on at least 16 occasions from 16 authors. That is not an error.

On top of that we have the previous plagiarism, and it has been reported The Listener is going to reveal even more plagiarism in his latest book.

And none of this is enough to warrant even a wet bus ticket from Auckland University. They keep maintaining there is no evidence it was deliberate.

I would have thought the burden of proof would be to prove any plagiarism was an “error”. Certainly that is what students would have to do.