Top Cambridge University educational is responsible of plagiarising work from her PhD pupil, tribunal hears

A respected Cambridge University academic plagiarised the work of a young post-doctoral research fellow, an employment tribunal heard.

Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner claimed as her own an argument put forward in a thesis by Dr Magdalen Connolly, an alumna of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

Dr Connolly launched a complaint, which was upheld after a four-year investigation – by which time she had quit the university complaining the prolonged process had ‘damaged’ her ‘health and wellbeing’.

Details emerged at a tribunal she brought against Cambridge, claiming she was the victim of age discrimination as university staff favoured the senior academic, who is executive director of the Woolf Institute, which studies interfaith relations, and Fellow of St Edmund’s College.

Dr Connolly, who is understood to be in her 30s, argued she was ‘treated differently’ to Dr Wagner, 50, during the investigation and that she was made to feel the ‘wrongdoer’.

The failure to take her ‘seriously’ meant Cambridge was ‘facilitating plagiarism and bullying by senior staff or junior staff and students’, she claimed.

Employment Judge Kate Hutchings rejected the claim, ruling that while the investigation was ‘slow’, Dr Connolly was partly responsible for this due to ‘lengthy and frequent concerns’ she raised and there was no evidence of age playing a part in the case.

But her ruling revealed the outcome of the plagiarism claim against Dr Wagner, who continues to work at the university. The experienced academic graduated with a first-class degree in semitic philology, Islamic studies and Indo-European studies from the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena in Germany.

Dr Magdalen Connolly (pictured), an alumna of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, alleged that a senior academic at Cambridge University stole from her thesis work

It is alleged that Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner (pictured) claimed as her own an argument put forward in a thesis by Dr Magdalen Connolly regarding a Judeo-Arabic text

EJ Hutchings said: ‘Without question, the plagiarism investigation was slow. Both parties are accountable for this…’

But she added: ‘We have found that [Dr Connolly] has not identified any fact (in addition to age) or tangible evidence from which we can conclude the reason for this treatment was age and a hypothetical comparator of a different age making a complaint of plagiarism would have been treated differently.’

The dispute involved ‘innovative ideas’ developed by Dr Connolly about a Judeo-Arabic text, according to an online account.

The tribunal, held in Cambridge, heard that she began work as a post-doctoral research fellow in October 2014 and lodged a formal written complaint in July 2020 against Dr Wagner, who was an adviser on her thesis on spoken Arabic in the pre-modern period.

This claimed Dr Wagner had ‘stolen’ her idea she shared in a reading group and included it in an article without crediting her.

In the early stages of the investigation, it was decided the complaint would be handled by the Cambridge University Library, instead of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

Dr Connolly claimed this was ‘demonstrative’ of the university not taking her complaints ‘seriously’.

But EJ Hutchings said it indicated the opposite as it ensured ‘from the outset that it had jurisdiction to implement appropriate sanctions’.

Cambridge University carried out a four-year investigation into Dr Connolly’s claims

A committee was appointed to look into the matter and in November 2021 Dr Connolly was told her complaint had not been upheld – leading her to raise a grievance with the vice-chancellor and appeal the decision.

It was subsequently concluded there ‘was a case to answer’ but, during the ongoing investigation, Dr Connolly left the university, citing the ‘profound impact’ on her mental health, and started the tribunal claim in 2022.

The tribunal ruled she had ‘conflated age and seniority’ in her claim against the university and there was no age discrimination, however.

Both academics and the university were contacted for comments.