Ironic?

I'm taking a class at University on Professional Ethics for Lawyers. There are several subtopics, and the one that I've elected to focus on is "whistleblowing" - as in, to report something when you see something unethical/illegal taking place. In researching my subtopic in preparation for a submission to the class, I noticed that the submission of one of my classmates for a different subtopic is directly copied (in part) from a speech given by some expert in the area.

Now, is this not irony?