Over half of PVV State Sec.'s master's thesis copied from existing texts: report
More than half of State Secretary Vicky Maeijer’s (Long-Term and Social Care, PVV) master’s thesis was copied from existing texts, BNR found when checking the 69-page document with the software universities use to detect plagiarism. Experts called it clear-cut academic fraud that could cost Maeijer her academic title.
According to the broadcaster, no less than 56 percent of the thesis was recognized from other sources. Some were possibly copied in good faith - about 24 percent concerned legal texts, court rulings, or very common formulations, or were clearly stated as a quote. The other 32 percent was copied from scientific papers and syllabi that were easily findable online when Maeijer wrote her thesis in 2009.
The PVV politician strung together fragments from a dozen sources to create a flowing whole, the broadcaster wrote. Sometimes she made minor adjustments to texts, for example by rewriting the sentences in the first person. Maeijer mentioned most of the plagiarized sources in her reference lists but did not actively quote them in the text, creating the impression that she wrote the copied passages herself.
BNR asked three experts to also examine the thesis. Two found convincing evidence of academic fraud. “The thesis is largely the result of clever cutting and pasting from various sources found on the internet,” Bernt Hugenholtz, an emeritus professor of information law, told the broadcaster. “If I had been the supervisor, I would never have approved the thesis in this form.”
Michael Hameleers, a university lecturer in political communication, told BNR that “there is certainly fraud” and he would not have accepted the thesis.
On the other hand, Gijs van Oenen, chairman of the Rotterdam examination committee for philosophy, thinks that the plagiarism line has not been crossed. According to him, Maeijer did copy a lot of her thesis, but the copied text does not contain a “claim of originality.”
Maeijer wrote her thesis in 2009 at Erasmus University Rotterdam as the final part of her master’s degree in International & European Public Law. According to BNR, she would not give a substantive answer to questions about her thesis. Her spokesperson told the broadcaster that it has been “some time” since her studies. “I worked hard to complete my studies. I wrote my thesis in good faith and with the best of intentions,” Maeijer said through her spokesperson.
