Mass. graduation speaker plagiarized speech, faculty says

A graduation speaker at Smith School relinquished her honorary diploma after the school found that sections of her speech have been plagiarized, the school’s president introduced Tuesday.

Musician Evelyn Harris, who obtained an honorary diploma from the college and spoke at Smith’s 147th graduation ceremony Sunday, borrowed a lot of her speech from different graduation speeches, President Sarah Willie-LeBreton wrote in a letter.

Willie-LeBreton shared that Harris had borrowed the phrases of others “with out the attribution typical of and central to the beliefs of educational integrity.” Harris later admitted that she plagiarized the speech, although she contended that she “sought to infuse the phrases of others together with her personal emotional valence,” based on the letter.

Harris gave again her honorary diploma, a choice which Willie-LeBreton accepted. The school is now engaged on a brand new model of the graduation ceremony highlights, which might be revealed on its web site at a later date, Willie-LeBreton wrote.

“I admire those that introduced the dissonance of this second to our consideration and am very grateful for the graciousness of Evelyn Harris’s resolution,” Willie-LeBreton wrote.

Harris is a vocal instructor, a former member of the a cappella group Candy Honey within the Rock, and a worldwide performer with a decades-long profession, based on the school’s web site.

Harris’ fellow honorary diploma recipients have been Danielle Allen, a professor of political philosophy, public coverage, and ethics at Harvard College; Rachel Levine, the seventeenth assistant secretary for well being for the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers; and Preeti Simran Sethi, an Emmy-award profitable author, educational, and psychological well being coach.

School officers didn’t instantly reply to a request to remark additional Tuesday night.