Ex-TDSB director Chris Spence wants the University of Toronto to let him keep his PhD
It’s possible that Chris Spence has suffered enough. Hired as TDSB’s education director in 2009, his reform mandate came to an abrupt end last year after he was forced to admit to being a serial plagiarist, calling his wide body of published work into question. Now, it seems as though the University of Toronto is getting ready to layer a little insult on top of all the injury: the Star reports that the school will hold a hearing on July 15 to decide whether or not Spence gets to keep his PhD.
The reason for the hearing is that Spence’s doctoral thesis, like much of his other writing, appears to borrow entire passages from previously published work, without attribution. Spence’s lawyer, Selwyn Pieters, told the Star that he’ll be attempting to show that the lack of attribution was the fault of a person Spence hired to transcribe his written manuscript. Pieters also said that he’ll be attempting to get the whole case thrown out as an abuse of process, because U of T used plagiarism-checking software on the thesis without his client’s consent.
Even if Spence does manage to retain those three all-important letters on his resume, though, his Google results will forever be plagued by write-ups like this one, which in some ways is the worst and most fitting punishment of all.
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It's possible that Chris Spence has suffered enough. Hired as TDSB's education director in 2009, his reform mandate came to an abrupt end last year after he was forced to admit to being a serial plagiarist, calling his wide body of published work into question. Now, it seems as though the University of Toronto is getting ready to layer a little insult on top of all the injury: the Star reports that the school will hold a hearing on July 15 to decide whether or not Spence gets to keep his PhD.
The reason for the hearing is that Spence's doctoral thesis, like much of his other writing, appears to borrow entire passages from previously published work, without attribution. Spence's lawyer, Selwyn Pieters, told the Star that he'll be attempting to show that the lack of attribution was the fault of a person Spence hired to transcribe his written manuscript. Pieters also said that he'll be attempting to get the whole case thrown out as an abuse of process, because U of T used plagiarism-checking software on the thesis without his client's consent.
Even if Spence does manage to retain those three all-important letters on his resume, though, his Google results will forever be plagued by write-ups like this one, which in some ways is the worst and most fitting punishment of all.){kind=link}
To sug that the Universit
It is entirely appropriate that Chris Spence be stripped of his doctorate for plagiarism in his thesis. The fact is that the plagiarism was detected by a journalist outside of the University of Toronto who provided their findings to the public. Therefore it was already in the public domain.
Every candidate for a PhD from university is aware that they, and they alone, are completely responsible for their doctoral thesis submission. There is no way errors or omissions can be explained away by blaming others – exactly what Chris spence is attempting to do. He is no less guilty than others before him who have also been stripped of their doctorates when they break cardinal rules of academia.
It is entirely inappropriate to refer to this action by the University of Toronto as somehow constituting an attempt to add “insult to injury” to Chris Spence. All academics who have toiled to earn their doctorate are held to the same very high standard — to fail to do so in Chris Spence’s case would be a huge disservice to all people who earned their doctorate fairly. It would devalue a UofT doctorate and would throw the door wide open for plagiarism to be acceptable, and if detected, well you can simply blame the typist and absolve yourself of responsibility as Chris Spence is now doing.
Chris Spence has been cheating at every step and, I am certain, would never have achieved such a high office without his doctorate and other claims of independent intellectual works. SHAME! He is not someone any parent wants their child to emulate.