This paper examines Joe Biden's history of plagiarism, tracing incidents from his time at Syracuse Law School through his 1987 Democratic presidential primary campaign. It analyzes how Biden copied the structure and content of a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock, how opponent Michael Dukakis exposed the misconduct, and how the scandal ended Biden's first presidential bid. The paper also considers Biden's defenses, the broader debate over intellectual property in political speech, and the lasting reputational damage caused by the controversy. It concludes by reflecting on the professional stakes of plagiarism for public figures in any field.
Senator Joe Biden may be the first man in his family to have attended university, and his wife the first in hers — but Biden is also most likely the first in his family to have been caught plagiarizing. While at Syracuse Law School, Biden failed a course in legal methods because he copied a five-page journal article and offered only a single footnote as a citation (Harvey 2003). He retook the course the following year and performed well, but the mark on his record would return to haunt him twenty years later.
Failing the course did not deter Biden from further misconduct, however. Many years after graduation, he was again caught lifting material — only this time, the Delaware Senator copied the structure and content of a speech delivered by British Member of Parliament Neil Kinnock. Biden stated in the speech: "I started thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? Why is it that my wife who is sitting out there in the audience is the first in her family to ever go to college?"
Kinnock had delivered the following rhetoric in one of his own addresses: "Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?" Not only the content but the structure of Kinnock's speech reappeared in Biden's. Biden did not copy Kinnock's words verbatim — he simply altered them to apply to his own life, apparently intending to feign innocence.
Moreover, Kinnock had stated in the same speech: "Was it because our predecessors were thick?" Biden paraphrased this as: "Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright?" However, Biden did lift the following phrase from Kinnock nearly word for word: "It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand." Biden said virtually the same thing in his speech to the Iowa caucus: "It's because they didn't have a platform upon which to stand." Whether paraphrasing or quoting directly, credit must be given to the original author through proper citation.
Biden's law school plagiarism and his Kinnock-derived speech went largely unnoticed until his opponent in the 1987 Democratic primary, Michael Dukakis, released a video that spliced together Biden's speech with Kinnock's ("Politics and Plagiarism"). Dukakis exposed the wrongdoing in order to ruin Biden's chance at becoming the Democratic Party's presidential nominee — and it worked. Plagiarism is nearly synonymous with stealing and dishonesty, making it a poisonous accusation in any political campaign. The smear campaign also revealed that Biden had incorporated words from the speeches of past politicians such as Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey without attribution ("Politics and Plagiarism"). Biden has since been called "the most famous political plagiarist of our time" and "the dumbest man in the US Senate" ("Politics and Plagiarism"; Confederate Yankee).
"Biden denies wrongdoing; media debates severity"
"Debate over borrowing in political speech"
"Scandal damages Biden's credibility long-term"
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