BOSTON -- There is 'no question' that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. plagiarized large parts of his doctoral dissertation while he was a graduate student in theology at Boston University in the 1950s, a committee of scholars concluded Thursday.
Nevertheless, the four-member panel said King's paper made 'an intelligent contribution to scholarship' and urged that his doctoral degree not be revoked.
School officials accepted the recommendation and said they hoped the controversy would not affect King's role as perhaps the best known leader of the American civil rights movement before his assassination in 1968.
The paper, which compares the 'conceptions of God' in the works of theologians Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman, was written by King in 1955 and submitted to BU's graduate Division of Religious Studies.
The committee, which included Robert Neville, dean of BU's School of Theology, estimated about 20 percent of the paper contained direct quotes or altered passages from other works without proper attribution.
'There is no question but that Dr. King plagiarized in the dissertation ...,' the scholars said.
However, they said the dissertation's final chapter in which King presented his conclusions 'exhibits very little borrowing,' and said it would be 'absurd and unheard of' in scholarly circles to revoke a doctoral degree under such circumstances.
'The constructive part of the dissertation, actually comparing and assessing Tillich and Wieman, makes an intelligent contribution to scholarship,' the report said.
University Provost Jon Westling said the findings, 'although important from the point of view of historical accuracy, do not affect Dr. King's greatness, nor do they change the fact that Dr. King made an unequalled contribution to the cause of justice and equal rights in this nation.'
The nearly year-long investigation was prompted by the King Papers Project at Stanford University in California, which first leveled the charges last November. The Stanford group is currently at work on a complete collection of King's writings.
Part of King's papers are held in the BU archives and part by the King Papers Project, which is sanctioned by his widow, Coretta Scott King.
Other members of the BU committee were John Cartwright, the Martin Luther King Jr. professor of social ethics at BU; Charley Hardwick, a relgiion professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and Ray Hart, chairman of BU's Department of Religion.
