AC Grayling's and Niall Ferguson's new college hit by plagiarism row
AC Grayling's new 'private university', announced on Sunday amid great fanfare as a rival to Oxbridge, finds itself mired just two days later in allegations of plagiarism and elitism - with one of its star professors, Richard Dawkins, taking time to distance himself from it, and a student protest planned for later today.
It was no surprise that the New College of the Humanities, due to open its doors in central London in September 2012, would enjoy extensive media coverage, given a professoriate that includes - besides Dawkins and Grayling - historian Niall Ferguson, geneticist Steven Jones and many more stars....
Justin Champion, a senior historian at Royal Holloway, told the Guardian he felt "quite insulted" because Royal Holloway syllabuses had been written using taxpayers' money. "If the University of London didn't exist and public money hadn't been used to draw up these syllabuses, they wouldn't have been able to do this, or they would have had to invest a lot of money," he said. "Here we have a whole degree programme being plagiarised."...