University of Maryland President Plagiarized From ChatGPT to Justify Anti-Israel Oct. 7 Rally

University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines defended his decision to allow anti-Israel protesters to rally on the anniversary of October 7 with what he said was original “faculty research” that proves that the Palestinian flag does not support terrorism. But the “research” was actually copied from ChatGPT, The Daily Wire found.

Pines passed off the text in an effort to justify his decision to allow the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to reserve a main campus quad on the anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel to “honor” the “martyrs.” Pines sent the text in response to an email from a Maryland resident who inquired if Pines, who is black, would be as supportive of groups flying the Confederate Flag on campus as he is of flying the Palestine flag.

“I have consulted with Middle East Scholars and Historians on our campus regarding the origin and history of the Palestinian Flag. The general consensus opinion from these faculty scholars is as follows,” Pines wrote.

The four paragraphs that followed — punctuated by a curt “I will not be responding to any further inquiries on this matter” — did not come from faculty scholars, but rather directly from the artificial intelligence service ChatGPT, after being modified to be more pro-Palestinian.

Pines wrote in his first paragraph that “The Palestinian flag is not generally considered a symbol of hate but rather a symbol of national identity, aspiration, and the struggle for statehood and self-determination,” though it “can be viewed differently depending on one’s perspective.”

When The Daily Wire asked ChatGPT “Is the Palestinian flag a symbol of hate?” the first paragraph of its response said that “its interpretation can vary widely depending on one’s perspective. For many Palestinians and their supporters, the flag is a symbol of identity, resistance, and the aspiration for statehood and self-determination.”

Pines wrote, and underlined, that “For Palestinians, the flag is a powerful symbol of their quest for self-determination, statehood, and the right to return.”

When ChatGPT was asked “Is the Palestinian flag a symbol of hate or national identity,” it said “For Palestinians, the flag is a powerful symbol of their national identity and cultural heritage. It represents their history, aspirations, and desire for self-determination and statehood.”

ChatGPT does not answer questions the same way each time, but reuses certain phrases. Almost all of the exact phrases in Pines’ email appeared in various orders and permutations when The Daily Wire asked similar questions, or the same question multiple times. The overall structure and tone of the answer is also unmistakably artificial intelligence. That makes it very likely that the text came from ChatGPT, and likely that the AI answer generated at the University of Maryland hewed even more closely to Pines’ email than The Daily Wire’s attempts to replicate it.

His response contained a sentence about how the flag “was formally adopted by the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964” (the PLO is a US-designated terror-supporting organization) and has “horizontal black, white, and green stripes with a red triangle on the left.”

ChatGPT says the flag “was adopted by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964” and has “horizontal black, white, and green stripes with a red triangle on the hoist side.”

Pines’s original writing and alterations stand out because they are often grammatically incorrect or poorly written. In addition to the unusual capitalization of “Middle East Scholars and Historians on our campus,” Pines added transitional words like “thus,” which appear out of place.

ChatGPT concludes: “In summary, while the Palestinian flag can be seen as a symbol of resistance and national identity for Palestinians, its interpretation can be influenced by various political and ideological perspectives. It’s important to approach such symbols with an understanding of the broader historical and political contexts in which they are used.”

“Thus, the Palestinian flag is primarily a symbol of Palestinian national identity, statehood, and the struggle for self-determination,” Pines’s message ends. “It is not inherently a symbol of hate but is deeply connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and thus its meaning can be interpreted differently depending on one’s political stance. While it may be perceived negatively in certain contexts, especially in Israel, it is recognized globally as the flag of a people seeking statehood and international recognition.”

Pines said that he had personally “consulted” with multiple scholars, implying that he synthesized the “consensus opinion from these faculty scholars.” It is possible that a University of Maryland “Middle East Scholar” used ChatGPT to gather information that was supposedly in his area of expertise, and sent it to Pines representing it as his own work, with Pines then in turn positioning it as his own. Pines did not respond to questions from The Daily Wire.

Pines’s sympathies with pro-Palestinian elements on campus came to the fore after he responded to the Hamas terror attack and pro-Palestine uprisings on college campuses by forming a “MD Joint Presidential-University Senate Task Force on Antisemitism and Islamophobia,” co-chaired by the anti-Israel Muslim professor Shibley Telhami.

There is evidence that Pines is close with, and working closely with, Telhami, including his personal response to the mother of a university student who objected to the anti-Israel views held by task force members.

“It’s LUDICROUS that someone who holds hateful views towards Israel (only democracy in the Middle East) and Jews is Chair of a Task Force on antisemitism,” the parent wrote to task force members. “Would you have a KKK Member on this Taskforce?”

Pines threatened to call the police on her for making “inappropriate” remarks. He added, “Members of our leadership team, and members of the Task Force care deeply about the safety and well being of every member of our campus community. Thus, the Task Force’s ongoing work is very important, and all of its members are deserving of our utmost respect and support.”

The mother had not included Pines on her emails, leading her to believe that Telhami enlisted him to respond.

Pines sent the ChatGPT information falsely attributed to “faculty scholarship” in an August 28 email to another Jewish resident who pressed him on the SJP rallies. His email also echoed SJP’s false claim that Israel has killed 150,000 people, and claimed SJP does not support terrorism.

SJP said on Instagram that it “unequivocally stands by international law as it outlaws the indiscriminate killing of civilians and establishes the right of Palestinians to carry out armed struggle,” and that it “unequivocally states that the Zionist state of Israel has no right to exist.” 

After The Daily Wire reported on the rally, and Pines’s refusal to cancel it despite the pleading of a campus rabbi, the University System of Maryland, which oversees all state public universities, intervened to ban all campus groups from hosting events on October 7. Pines then issued his own statement on the shutdown, implying that the university was cancelling the rally to protect pro-Palestinian protesters, even though he acknowledged that the police told him there was no evidence of threats to protesters.

Several university presidents have stepped down after enabling anti-Zionism on campus, which often fit with a broader leftist agenda against “colonialism.” One of those presidents, Harvard’s Claudine Gay, also resigned after journalists discovered she had plagiarized much of her academic writing.