The government has proposed doubling the penalty for cheating and plagiarism, from a two-semester suspension to four, in a draft law expected to reach parliament later this year.
Retrager said he was inspired by the plagiarism accusations against Claudine Guy, the former president of Harvard University, to check Burch's work. Gay resigned this month after her presidency was mired in accusations and allegations by some that her response to anti-Semitism on campus following Hamas-led attacks on Israel was inadequate.
When Retrigger Googled, he found that parts of Burch's 2014 law thesis were nearly identical to a government report that Burch did not reference. After he published his discoveries in the Norwegian newspaper X E24 I published an article about plagiarism. E24 newspaper reported that the thesis – relating to the regulation of oil extraction in Norway – contains the same typographical errors that appeared in the 2005 text.
The reports also sparked intense scrutiny of the academic work of other lawmakers, and reporters found that parts of the health minister's thesis resembled other texts. Minister Ingvild Kirkwall admitted that some references were missing, but denied intentional copying. However, some academics called for her resignation.
Some politicians criticized what they saw as a media witch hunt for the works of 25-year-olds who later became politicians.
“Are newspaper editors’ theses also examined?” Christine Clemet, a former education secretary, wrote about X.
Retrager, who rides a tractor on his mother's farm north of Oslo and listens to audiobooks when he's not studying, said the case revealed something he had already learned through his work in agriculture.
“On the farm, you have to do your own work,” he said. “You can't steal other people's money.”
This article originally appeared on New York times.
