Die Zeitung von Princeton Student beschuldigt Hegseth des Plagiats

>The newspaper for the alma mater of [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth](https://www.thedailybeast.com/keyword/pete-hegseth/) published a report on Saturday suggesting that Hegseth plagiarized elements of his senior thesis.

>The [report](https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2025/05/princeton-news-pete-hegseth-senior-thesis-plagiarism-allegations) in *The Daily Princetonian* alleges that Hegseth’s senior thesis, submitted in 2003, contained eight instances of “uncredited material, sham paraphrasing, and verbatim copying,” according to a review conducted by three plagiarism experts.

>One example was taken from an [article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/09/12/bush-vows-retaliation-for-mass-murder/1ab66f40-1626-4b9d-a49a-3187402d9c89/) in *The Washington Post* published shortly after 9/11. In Hegseth’s thesis, he wrote, “After Card‘s whisper, Bush looked distracted and somber but continued to listen to the second-graders, joking that they ‘read like sixth-graders.’”

>The article in the *Post* reads, “After Card‘s whisper, Bush looked distracted and somber but continued to listen to the second-graders read and soon was smiling again. He joked that they read so well, they must be sixth-graders.” Hegseth does not cite the article in his paper.

>While the experts consulted found that the instances of plagiarism in Hegseth’s thesis violated Princeton’s academic honesty regulations, their opinions on whether the violations were serious enough to matter differed.

>James M. Lang, author of *Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty,* called it a “borderline case,” telling the *Princetonian*, “There’s no silver bullet here; there’s no smoking gun in terms of a deep example of plagiarism.”

>Lang felt that there was more “gray than black and white” in this case, with roughly half of the examples constituting serious plagiarism and the other half only being minor violations.

>One example that Lang felt was egregious was a passage similar to one seen in a book about President John F. Kennedy, while Jonathan Bailey, who runs the website Plagiarism Today, did not feel that example was a serious violation.

>While Lang felt that an example that involved similarities of 10 or 12 words raised red flags, Bailey disagreed, telling the paper, “Even the ones that were more direct still typically only involve a sentence or two at a time.”

>The paper ran Hegseth’s thesis through multiple plagiarism detection models that flagged 12 passages throughout the paper. Of those 12 passages, the plagiarism experts they consulted found that only eight were serious, with the other four not significant enough to warrant concern on their own, though they did say it “fit a broader pattern of some form of plagiarism.”

>Hegseth’s thesis was titled ‘Modern Presidential Rhetoric and the Cold War Context’. In it, he analyzed the evolution of presidential speeches from the mid-20th century to the early 2000s and argued that modern presidential rhetoric is primarily influenced by prevailing global threats. As *The Daily Princetonian* explains, the senior thesis “represents the capstone of the Princeton undergraduate experience and is a graduation requirement for almost all students.” Hegseth graduated from Princeton in 2003.

Who would’ve thought?

OK, just a little plagiarism it’s not like they accused him of being stupid, only lazy.

Unqualified white man thinks DEI is a problem, while keeping top job even after committing countless fireable offenses which would have gotten any minority or woman fired if they even THOUGHT of doing 1/10000000th of what he did.

Not really in the top ten shitty things about Hegseth, to be honest. I’d rather focus on utterly incompetent and dishonest he is. At least 50% of students engage in some level of failing to properly attribute their sources.

I’m not even surprised

They misspelt “alcoholism”.