He said "they're second-rate scholars, so they have to plagiarize."
Sorry, I don't remember which "public intellectual" I was watching. Oh well.
“He said “they’re second-rate scholars, so they have to plagiarize.””
From my experience in a certain branch of “academia”, this is a sure bet, especially among a favored subset with high-DEI attributes. And they are absolutely untouchable, regularly failing upward to cover for those who won’t deal with unsuitable performance.