If the plagiarism of Mr. Chris Spence was intentional, why would he leave behind a mile long, publicly accessible, bread crumb trail detailing his plagiarism misdeeds? This behavior does not make sense, especially for an individual with so much to lose, unless Spence plagiarized unintentionally!
It may be that prior to January 9, 2013, Spence was not fully aware that his way of putting pen to paper was unethical. Writing for The Globe and Mail, Moore & Chiose (2013) say, "In his writing of the article, [Without school sports, everyone loses] he explained he had copied material from elsewhere and then gone back and used it, apparently in the belief that it was his own" (para. 42).
I imagine that it is not unheard of that the practice of copying material from elsewhere, setting it aside during the hectic daily life of a TDSB director, returning to the notes after a period of time, and arranging them in a new order may indeed seem like the final product has the stamp of originality.
This mode of writing resembles the practice of patch writing, whereby material from different sources are meshed together in various ways and blended with the writer's own words. Through this process, the facts are that the new creation too closely resembles the writing of the original source(s), and references are not supplied. It is plagiarism, but it may give the impression to the patch writer that the final piece is their own work. This is all the more true if time has elapsed between the notetaking and the writing process.
There is little effort in simply copying and pasting, and the writer may feel uncomfortable with what they have done. Patch writing, on the other hand, although flawed, takes real effort, even as much effort as writing legitimately, and may furnish the false sense that the writer has produced a final product that is original.
With this introduction to patch writing, let's take a closer look at Mr. Spence's article.
What follows is a portion of Spence's 530 word article, Without school sports, everyone loses, published in the Toronto Star. The green, red, and violet lettered sections have been plagiarized, each representing a different source, while the black lettering is likely Spence's own words. Moore & Chiose (2013) have identified the individual sources. Green lettering has been taken from a New York Times article, red lettering from the book True North: Discover your authentic leadership, by Bill George, and violet letting from the Coaching Excellence blog of the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (IPEC).
This section comprises 125 words, or only 24 percent of the entire article, and includes four different voices if we include his own (black lettering). To patch write his way to an integrated whole Spence seems to have done an admirable job. He appears to effortlessly move from noting some of the positive attributes of sports, and then tapping into his early personal experience on the field, bringing the discussion into his teenage years and tying the discussion back to the linkages between leadership and team building.
I will emphasize again that this form of writing takes hard work! It is more than arranging the individual pieces of a jigsaw writing puzzle, it also involves finding and selecting the jigsaw pieces. While the highlighted plagiarized sentences above are direct copies, Spence also took time to manipulate the text, giving a different arrangement to the words, in other portions of this article that were also plagiarized.
Furthermore, there is evidence that in addition to the patch writing, the article underwent a process of editing or proofreading. The word practise, appearing in the third paragraph above was originally written as practice in the IPEC blog. Spence or an editor combed through the article, prior to publishing, and changed practice (American usage) to practise (UK usage). Given Spence's UK upbringing, it is possible that Spence did the work of proofreading and made this change.
This idea of extra time is also raised by a commenter in a reddit post. Writing about a different instance of plagiarism by Spence, the comment reads, in part, "I seriously don't get it. How much work is it to sit down and pound out 200 words in reaction to a popular media event? Searching for and plagiarizing other people's reactions actually seems like more work than writing an original piece" (notanasshole53, 2013) Not unexpectedly, a few expletives follow, but this observation of more work seems to hold true.
Taking the time, taking the "more work" to patch write makes more sense from Spence's perspective if he believed his writing efforts were legitimate and not intentional plagiarism.
In the initial aftermath of the great plagiarism uncovering, Spence wrote an apology (January 9, 2013) where he suggested this breach of journalistic ethics might be attributed to being rushed, along with sloppy and careless work (Lang, 2013, para. 15). In a self-appointed remedy, Spence vowed to enroll in a journalism ethics course at Ryerson University where he could learn about the "identification, and avoidance of plagiarism" (Lang, 2013, para. 20)
After seven months of a hellish existence, Spence broke his silence about his plagiarism scandal. He expanded on the causes of his plagiarism by attributing it to ambition, a "Type-A drive that left him little time to write his own work", and a reliance on unnamed (writing) assistants (Rushowy, 2013, paras. 6, 8)
Following the interview, Rushowy noted that Spence, "stopped short of admitting he ever knowingly stole someone else's words" (para. 9).
Spence described his process as follows, "You don't sit down and say, 'I'm going to start plagiarizing now.' You are just going through different ideas and you read a lot and you take notes. You're working on something, you go away, you read something, you write it down ... I'm a fairly prolific reader, so sometimes I just read ideas that meshed with my own'" (Rushowy, 2013, para. 10).
The explanation of feeling rushed, and not having enough time, which can go hand-in-hand with sloppy and careless work, are characteristics of a person who intentionally plagiarizes, looking for short cuts in the research and writing process. However, in the course of writing this alternative explanation, it has become apparent that Spence's mode of writing, patch writing, may take an equal amount of time or even more time than legitimate writing!
On the other hand, Spence's description of his own research/writing process of notetaking, stepping away, and meshing, along with his expressed desire to be educated about plagiarism, and his belief that he did not knowingly steal another person's words are consistent with unintentional plagiarism.
If it is to be believed that Spence's plagiarism was unintentional, then in the short span of time between the Toronto Star editors confronting him about the plagiarism allegations and his apology, there must have been a kind of light bulb moment. In that moment, Spence would have seen the presumed legitimacy of his way of research/writing, patch writing, crumble suddenly before his eyes.
There was little time. His status as a highly public figure, as the Director of Education for the largest publicly funded school board in the country, implicitly demanded that he immediately address the allegations. There was no way to hide, no way to thoughtfully consider a way forward. The road ahead was jagged, and filled with sharp objects that would cut him at every turn.
The idea of truth telling, of acknowledging his false belief in the legitimacy of patch writing, must have been ruled out almost immediately. It would have gone against everything he believed in regarding education, and the education of Black kids and youth. Spence was a passionate educator, championing and working for the success of kids everywhere, and in particular boys, and Black kids and youth.
The title of Spence's dissertation, The effects of sport participation on the academic and career aspirations of Black male student athletes in Toronto high schools, underscores his passion well enough.
As a role model for thousands of Black kids and youth in the Toronto region, how could Spence possibly engage in the truth telling exercise, admitting that for all of those years, decades in fact, he did not understand the process of legitimate research and writing?
It would instantly destroy everything he had worked for, and reinforce a racist stereotype.
Finally, no one would believe him.
The only road that lay open to him was the lie, the believable lie, the one about intentional plagiarism. It was the lie that would destroy him, but only him. Potential incursions into reinforcing a racial stereotype would be cutoff. Spence must have known that taking responsibility for the plagiarism would be a career ending move. In fact, his resignation letter followed closely on the heels of his written apology and his appearance at the emergency school board meeting.
Besides limiting the damage to him alone, this course of action might also have a silver lining, by possibly drawing attention to the issue of equity for visible minorities, particularly Black minorities in Toronto and the wider regional/provincial/national context. This fall from grace might come to be understood, in some quarters, as an episode in the fight for equity. In this light, the plagiarism in Spence's 1996 dissertation might be read as the struggle of a Black man trying to survive and thrive in a world of White privilege. This struggle for equity is pervasive, existing in many employment sectors, extending beyond the field of education. As an example, a decade after Spence's resignation, the public face of this social issue landed in the Toronto Police Service's disciplinary hearing against Superintendent Stacy Clarke, a young, capable Black female officer. Clarke pleaded guilty to three counts of breach of confidence, three counts of discreditable conduct, and one count of insubordination. The charges related to her action of giving preferential treatment to six officers in the internal promotions process of the force leading to the rank of sergeant. This preferential treatment included supplying interview questions and answer rubrics ahead of time, along with holding mock interviews beyond the stipulated cutoff point, and while acting as a member of the interview panel (Carter, 2023).
Turning back to the case of Chris Spence, who is to say that as a young, ambitious, and capable young Black man, the plagiarism wound its way into his dissertation through a process encompassing the equity fight?
Does this mean that Spence took one for the team, so to speak? In that light-bulb moment, back in the fall of 2013, at the beginning of a new school year, when Spence was confronted with his mistaken understanding that patch writing was a legitimate form of writing, he fell on the plagiarism sword, taking responsibility for it, telling the believable lie, and steering away from the truth about his lack of understanding of the legitimate approach to research/writing, and thereby cutting off the further deepening of a pernicious and racial stereotype?
To receive the remainder of this essay send me an email: rsims@centennialcollege.ca