Anyone who’s been to a college graduation ceremony in their life knows that they are some of the most boring, torturous events ever forced upon young people. The worst part is usually the speech from the valedictorian. Not only is it typically smug and self-aggrandizing, folks who have the time to become valedictorians at large or prestigious universities, usually don’t have the time to become entertaining people. Fortunately, the good kids at Columbia University got to hear a truly entertaining speech from the School Of General Studies valedictorian Brian Corman. Unfortunately, it was only entertaining because he stole a huge section of it word for word from a popular stand up routine by Patton Oswalt. Oops. Alright, Corman, what’s the biggest SAT words you can use to say “Goodbye, degree!”

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The bit in question comes from Oswalt’s hugely popular album Werewolves and Lollipops entitled “Physics for Poets.” In the original story, Oswalt detailed his time in the eponymous class at the College of William & Mary and how he took umbrage when

the professor tried to relate to his “artsy” students with a Star Trek based word problem. Corman moves the story to Columbia in his sophomore year and replaces Patton with a friend of his. A friend who was probably sitting in the audience thinking, “Gee, Brian. I don’t remember that anecdote at all…”

After Columbia posted video of the commencement on YouTube, someone sent a link of the stolen bit to Oswalt who shared it with fans on his Twitter this morning. Within minutes, Brian Corman’s internet crucifixion had begun. The comments on the YouTube video are not pretty. Columbia was forced to post a hasty disclaimer over the offending section of the video explaining the situation and that Corman had issued an apology to the comedian. I call the disclaimer “hasty” because, at the time of this post, they had misspelled Oswalt’s name.

Many people are calling for Columbia to take away Corman’s degree since he probably also plagiarized throughout his collegiate career. Their logic is “once a cheater, always a cheater.” I also believe he most likely stole before, however, I believe it for a different reason. My thinking is, if someone is dumb enough to think that they can steal an entire routine from one of the most popular stand up albums of the last decade and perform it in front of thousands of college kids without anyone knowing, chances

are they aren’t smart enough to be the valedictorian of an Ivy League university.

Below is a video of the stolen section of Corman’s speech. Below that is the original routine as it appears on Oswalt’s (hilarious) album.

(h/t AV Club)


Tags: Columbia University, commencement speech, Patton Oswalt, Plagiarism