DiCiccio: “Taxpayers must be protected and deserve to get their money back”
The city of Phoenix will formally seek the refund of monies paid to the Whitaker Group, owned by ASU Professor Matthew Whitaker, for cultural competency training for the Phoenix Police Department after it was discovered that the training materials he produced were largely copied from the Chicago Police Department.
At the time of the discovery, Councilman Sal DiCiccio said, “He ultimately was paid more than $21,000 in taxpayer money for work that he didn’t do, and he needs to pay it all back.”
“Professor Whitaker needs to stop digging a credibility hole for himself, and just return the taxpayers’ money,” DiCiccio said this week. “Phoenix taxpayers were ripped off and we need to send a message to anyone looking to take advantage of our citizens that this will not be tolerated. I support and applaud the quick action of City Manager Ed Zuercher to seek a refund — a positive step that puts the needs of taxpayers first. City taxpayers paid the Whitaker Group more than $21,000 for work that was largely copied from others. Taxpayers must be protected and deserve to get their money back.”
Councilman Michael Nowakowski issued a statement: “As chairman of the city council’s Public Safety and Veterans subcommittee, I believe this action taken by our City Manager is fair and reasonable and that it will lead to a satisfying conclusion to this situation with the Whitaker Group. However, it is important that we remain committed to providing this training, improving our community relations and further engaging our police officers in Cultural Competency awareness.”
DiCiccio presented Whitaker’s slides and shared his slide-by-slide analysis of the 84-slide presentation Professor Whitaker created for Phoenix Police it shows that only seven slides were original, with 52 being exact copies or slides with just minor changes. The remaining 25 slides were either pictures or non-content pages such as welcome and title pages, according to the councilman.
DiCiccio says his analysis also shows the Whitaker Group placing a copyright on the Chicago material used in the Phoenix presentation.
Whitaker, founding director of the Center for Race and Democracy at ASU, admitted to the plagiarism in his book, Peace Be Still: Modern Black America from World War II to Barack Obama, in a letter dated July 1, 2015. As result, DiCiccio called for the competency contract be cancelled.
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