The former dean and current professor who filed a lawsuit against the school last week, responded to Princeton's comment on the lawsuit Monday
PRINCETON - A battle between Princeton University and a former dean accused of plagiarism continued this week, with the former dean accusing the school of openly discussing confidential information.
Alejandro Zaera-Polo (Princeton University Website) Alejandro Zaera-Polo, a current professor and former dean of architecture, lambasted the school Monday for making a public statement last week in which they referenced a 2014 investigation into the plagiarism claims.
He said the investigation is confidential and shouldn't have been discussed or referenced.
"Now it is the university itself that is releasing confidential information and reporting on a faculty adjudication," he said Monday.
The disagreement between the university and the former dean of architecture started in 2014 when a graduate student accused Zaera-Polo of plagiarizing texts on an architecture exhibit from Wikipedia, he said.
The accusations against Zaera-Polo appeared online and were even sent to a reporter at the New York Times, the professor claimed.
Princeton University President Christopher Eisgruber quickly forced Zaera-Polo to step down from his position as dean, which he did in October of that year, Zaera-Polo said.
Though the incident is two years old, the case was brought up again in a lawsuit that the former dean filed against the university and the unnamed graduate student last week. In it he claimed that the allegations are false and that his reputation took an unfair hit after he stepped down.
The university responded to his complaint last week.
"The University is confident that the officials and faculty members who investigated and adjudicated the claims against Professor Zaera-Polo did so fairly and in accordance with University policies and procedures," the statement said.
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For Zaera-Polo, the statement was another affront to his reputation.
He responded Monday, saying that the investigation itself was confidential information and should not have been discussed.
"The University's latest statement constitutes one more violation of its own rules of confidentiality, and confirms a pattern of breaches in contempt for my reputation," Zaera-Polo said Monday.
He also called the statement "incomplete and misleading," saying that he was not the only person investigated after the allegations came out.
Eisgruber, university Dean of Faculty Deborah Prentice and the graduate student - who is still unnamed - were all investigated, Zaera-Polo said.
He said the investigations into the two administrators and the student all had to do with confidentiality issues.
Zaera-Polo specifically discussed the unnamed graduate student, claiming the student was upset after being "sidelined" from the 2014 exhibition. He said the student was to blame for the incident.
"He did enter the archive of the project several times through a device I was unaware of, copied materials and falsified their status to make misrepresentations of my work to the University," Zaera-Polo said.
The student was investigated but exonerated, he claimed.
In a statement Wednesday, the university said that they could not comment on the specifics of the case, including whether or not the other investigations ever took place.
But in an early statement in March they said that Zaera-Polo's claims about the nature of his resignation were wrong.
"He was asked to step down in large measure because of statements he made in writing that indicated he was unfamiliar with the University's policies on plagiarism and that he may have directed his collaborators to breach the rules of the University," the university said.
Anna Merriman may be reached at amerriman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @anna_merriman Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.