After many academics and university administrators across the U.S. were targeted with plagiarism accusations, University of Maryland president Darryll Pines is still fighting his own allegations a year later.

The Daily Wire, a conservative media outlet, reported last September that an academic paper co-authored by Pines in 2002 lifted 1,500 words from a tutorial website by then-doctoral student Joshua Altmann. Another paper co-authored by Pines four years later recycled the same allegedly plagiarized content, the outlet reported.

The outlet’s reporting came months after plagiarism allegations against academics were amplified by conservative political figures. They often targeted academics who focused on diversity efforts in universities and who are Black.

In an interview with The Diamondback on Wednesday, Altmann said he was disappointed that Pines would potentially plagiarize from his work.

While he wasn’t first overly concerned by the claims, Altmann said it wasn’t until later when he saw the full comparison between his work and Pines’ paper, authored with fellow researcher Liming Salvino.

“To me, that was clear plagiarism — although it’s not critical to the paper,” Altmann said. “It’s a shortcut, basically.”

Altmann now works at an oil and gas company in Qatar. He said he is “letting it go,” as his work belongs to his former university. It’s possible Pines didn’t touch the part of the paper that was allegedly plagiarized because he was a co-author, Altmann added.

Salvino did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Diamondback.

[Experts divided on plagiarism accusations against UMD president Darryll Pines]

The day after The Daily Wire story was published, Pines dismissed the allegations in a letter to university faculty members but acknowledged “recurrent language in the introductory sections.” He announced that he had asked the university’s research integrity office to initiate an independent review into the claims.

“While I do not believe there is merit to these claims, an impartial review is in the best interest of the university,” Pines wrote in the Sept. 18, 2024 letter, noting he held himself to the same standards and practices as those of his colleagues.

The law firm Ropes & Gray has not yet finished the independent review, a University System of Maryland spokesperson confirmed to The Diamondback on Tuesday.

In a statement provided to The Diamondback in July, a spokesperson for the university system said the review length is not unusual. These kinds of reviews can often take more than a year, according to the statement.

“One reason for the length of time is that these reviews must be conducted by individuals who have no relationship with the person being reviewed,” the statement read. “They must also have the same level — or greater level — of expertise as the person being reviewed.”

This university deferred to the university system in response to The Diamondback’s request for comment.

Jonathan Bailey, a copyright and plagiarism expert and author of Plagiarism Today, said Pines’ plagiarism accusation came on the heels of similar cases often targeting Black academics.

“These are no longer traditional university plagiarism cases,” Bailey said. “These are political ones.”

But while most of those allegations were quite weak, Bailey said the accusation against Pines was more serious than many of the others and felt like it “actually had some importance and needed some weight.”

[UMD president Darryll Pines denies plagiarism accusations]

For attorney Keith Altman, who specializes in education law, the length of the review highlights the disparity in how plagiarism cases are handled between students and faculty.

“The average student who is charged with plagiarism does not get an independent third party to come in, does not get as thorough as an investigation,” said Altman, who is not related to Joshua Altmann. “So it does open up a question: Why is the president entitled to a more-thorough, complete investigation than the average student?”

While it’s not practical to bring in an investigator for each student accused of plagiarism, the standards and processes should be the same, he said

Altman said the independent review is also more complicated because another person authored the paper alongside Pines.

“For example, if Dr. Pines’ co-author is the one that [plagiarized], it’s entirely reasonable that Dr. Pines would have no knowledge that that happened,” he said. “I think that certainly plays into the concept of the investigation and what should be done.”

After the widespread backlash following plagiarism accusations against former Harvard University president Claudine Gay, Bailey said some universities began to treat these kinds of cases as public relations issues rather than academic integrity issues.

That doesn’t seem to include this university, he said. Rather than expedite the review to get the case out of the public discourse, Bailey said the university has stuck with its traditional methods of handling academic integrity.

Bailey added that there is a strong anti-academia voice being heard across the country, and these cases have been used to prove that universities are a “corrupting influence.”

“These types of stories feed into that anti-academia bias and give it evidence that those individuals can point to for why academia is corrupt,” Bailey said. “It’s one of those self fulfilling prophecies that keeps that wheel spinning pretty much perpetually.”