The Mansfield School Committee will meet Tuesday to review whether School Superintendent Brenda J. Hodges used plagiarized material in her June 8 commencement address at Mansfield High School.
After the ceremony, Hodges said in an interview, she received an anonymous e-mail from someone who identified himself or herself as a Mansfield High student. According to Hodges, the e-mail said she should be aware of rumors that she had plagiarized comments of US Navy Admiral William H. McRaven, and provided a link to that speech.
In McRaven’s May 17 speech at the University of Texas Austin, he stated that “if every one of you changed the lives of just 10 people, and each one of those folks changed the lives of another 10 people, just 10, then in five generations, 125 years, the class of 2014 will have changed the lives of 800 million people.”
In her speech, Hodges said that if “every one of you changed the lives of just five people, just five, then in five generations, 125 years, the class of 2014 will have changed the lives of 400 million people.”
In the interview, Hodges said she had not heard McRaven’s speech before she gave hers, but had been inspired by a graduation speech she heard in her native Oklahoma in May 2013. She asked that speaker for permission to use his notes, Hodges said, but now wishes she had cited him in her address. Hodges said she has documentation to show those remarks were made in May 2013.
Though Hodges and McRaven used several similar passages, their two speeches were quite different, Hodges said.
“I don’t think it rose to the level of plagiarism,” she said.
Hodges said that McRaven’s speech was about “a hundred times better” than hers and was about 19 minutes long, while hers lasted about four minutes. They both mentioned Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani education activist, she said.
She added: “This may be a teachable moment for the students. I think they’re listening and they’re paying attention to what they’re being taught. They’re hearing over and over again, ‘Cite your sources.’ ”
School Committee chairman Michael A. Trowbridge Sr. said Hodges came forward with the allegations. The School Committee will meet in executive session “to discuss the speech and review any information on this topic,” he said in an e-mail, but he would not speculate on possible action if Hodges is found to have plagiarized.