A Cambridge University professor who plagiarized parts of an undergraduate’s essays and published them as his own work will retain his position despite an investigation confirming the plagiarism complaint. Dr. William O’Reilly, an associate professor in early modern history, submitted a paper to the Journal of Austrian-American History in 2018, but it was discovered that large sections of the work were copied from his student’s essays.
The decision to allow O’Reilly to remain in his role raises concerns about the internal disciplinary processes at Cambridge, which rely on academics to judge their peers.
The plagiarism came to light in 2021 when the former student stumbled upon the article and notified the university. The student provided evidence that entire pages of the paper had been lifted directly from two of their essays.
According to the university’s misconduct policy, plagiarism is considered a serious offense that can lead to dismissal. However, after a two-year investigation, a university disciplinary tribunal determined that O’Reilly’s plagiarism was the result of negligence rather than an intentional act. This decision was communicated to the parties involved in May.
This is not the first incident involving O’Reilly that has raised questions about the university’s governance. In 2020, it was revealed that O’Reilly had been allowed to lead disciplinary processes into sexual assault allegations at Trinity Hall, a Cambridge college where he was affiliated, despite facing his own sexual assault accusation from a student. O’Reilly denies the allegations, and no further action was taken.
An anonymous university employee acknowledged that the internal processes on plagiarism were followed but expressed discontent with the outcome. Cambridge declined to comment in detail on the allegations against O’Reilly and confirmed that the article had been withdrawn from the journal.
Documents reviewed by the Financial Times, including the student’s essays, revealed that almost half of the pages in O’Reilly’s published article titled “Fredrick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis, Orientalism, and the Austrian Militärgrenze” were plagiarized. The documents also showed that O’Reilly had read and praised the original essays, describing them as excellent and original.
The article was retracted from the Journal of Austrian-American History with a note acknowledging the inclusion of uncredited material. The publisher and editor retracted the article promptly upon discovering this issue.
O’Reilly did not respond to requests for comment, and the original author of the essays complained but declined to comment further.
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