Martin Luther King Jr.earned a doctorate in systematic theological system from Boston University in 1955 . He ’d antecedently pull in a Bachelor of Arts from Morehouse College and a Bachelor of Divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary . Hisdissertation , “ A Comparison of the Conception of God in the cerebration of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman , ” examined the two religious philosopher ’ thought of God in comparison to each other , and to King ’s own conception of a " cognisable and personal " God .
In 1989 , some three decades after King had pull in his doctor’s degree , archivist work with The Martin Luther King Papers Projectdiscoveredthat King ’s thesis suffered from what they called a “ problematic use of sources . ” King , they learned , had conduct a large amount of material verbatim from other scholars and sources and used it in his work without full or proper ascription , and sometimes no ascription at all .
In 1991 , a Boston University investigatory committeeconcludedthat King had indeed plagiarized part of his dissertation , but found that it was “ airy to reach , on the available evidence , any conclusion about Dr. King ’s reasons for failing to attribute some , but not all , of his reservoir . ” That is , it could have been anything from malicious intent to simple forgetfulness — no one can determine for indisputable today . They did not recommend a posthumous revocation of his grade , but insteadsuggestedthat a letter of the alphabet be sequester to the thesis in the university depository library noting the passages lack quotations and citation .
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