From the issue dated December 17, 2004
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 The FalloutWhat happened to six scholars accused of plagiarism
Charles J. Ogletree Jr. About six paragraphs in All Deliberate Speed, Mr. Ogletree's new book on the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, were copied verbatim from a book by Jack M. Balkin, a Yale law professor. Mr. Ogletree, a Harvard University law professor, said the section was inserted by one research assistant and was supposed to be reviewed and rewritten by another assistant. Instead, quotation marks were dropped, and, under pressure to meet a publishing deadline, the material was edited as though it had been written by Mr. Ogletree. After the copying was discovered this fall, Elena Kagan, the Harvard Law School dean, asked Derek Bok, a former Harvard president, and Robert Clark, a former dean of the law school, to investigate the allegation. They found that the borrowing was "a serious scholarly transgression." University officials have not disclosed what action they have taken, but Mr. Ogletree has said he has been disciplined. In a written statement, he apologized, calling it a "serious mistake" and saying that he had "delegated too much responsibility to others during the final editing process." *** Roger Shepherd Earlier this fall, Mr. Shepherd, a longtime professor at New School University's Parsons School of Design, admitted to copying portions of another scholar's work in his 2002 book, Structures of Our Time: 31 Buildings That Changed Modern Life. Most of the section on the Equitable Savings and Loan building in Portland, Ore., is taken nearly verbatim from a book written by Meredith L. Clausen, an architectural-history professor at the University of Washington. She is not acknowledged in any way in Mr. Shepherd's book. Editors at another scholarly press and his own dean also found additional examples of unattributed copying in the book. When confronted, Mr. Shepherd admitted the plagiarism to The Chronicle and called it "probably the worst thing I've ever done." He said he took responsibility, but also suggested the problems were caused by a research assistant who had inserted the material and that he had intended to rewrite it. Mr. Shepherd then resigned, according to New School University. But a month later, he sued the university claiming that he had not resigned but instead had been unfairly fired. He is demanding his job back. Mr. Shepherd's lawyer acknowledges the plagiarism but says the penalty is "rather harsh." *** Laurence H. Tribe Following a tip from a law professor earlier this year, The Weekly Standard examined Laurence H. Tribe's 1985 book God Save This Honorable Court and found several passages that mirror ones in a 1974 book by another legal scholar. The magazine also found one 19-word sentence that appeared in both books. Mr. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard University, did not use footnotes in the book because it was designed for a popular audience, but he did mention the 1974 book, by Henry J. Abraham, in the appendix. After the magazine story was published, Mr. Tribe apologized, saying that he had not properly attributed some of the material in the book and that he took "full responsibility for that failure." University officials say they are still reviewing the matter. *** Brian VanDeMark As an associate professor of history at the U.S. Naval Academy, Mr. VanDeMark wrote Pandora's Keepers: Nine Men and the Atomic Bomb, which was published in 2003. But when newspapers sent the book to scholars for reviews, several authors discovered their own words. Eventually, historians identified dozens of passages from at least five other authors that appear without proper credit in Mr. VanDeMark's book. In response, the Naval Academy demoted Mr. VanDeMark to assistant professor, stripped him of his tenure, and cut his salary by $10,000. But the academy did not fire him, as some of the plagiarized authors had suggested. Officials said the professor was guilty of "gross carelessness" but that his actions "did not constitute a deliberate effort to pass off the works of other authors as his own." For his part, Mr. VanDeMark said in a written statement at the time that he accepted responsibility for "my unintentional mistakes." *** Jayme A. Sokolow When Mr. Sokolow came up for tenure at Texas Tech University in 1981, his colleagues discovered that he had borrowed words from other scholars for numerous pieces, including articles, his dissertation at New York University, and a book manuscript. He lost his tenure bid, but was not forced out. Instead, the department allowed him to finish out the year and quietly resign. And he did go on to publish the book, even though several people had discovered the plagiarism in it. The matter was kept quiet until it was described in detail in Thomas Mallon's 1989 book, Stolen Words. Mr. Sokolow went on to work as a grant officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 1991 he created the Development Source, a consulting company that helps businesses and nonprofit organizations write grant proposals. He has given presentations at numerous colleges and won several awards from the Association of Proposal Management Professionals. He still keeps his fingers in history, though. In 2002 his latest book, The Great Encounter: Native Peoples and European Settlers in the Americas, 1492-1800, was published. *** M. Jamil Hanifi Mr. Hanifi had been a professor of anthropology at Northern Illinois University for more than a decade before administrators there learned that he had plagiarized substantial portions of his dissertation at Southern Illinois University. The news came out in 1981, at the same time he was being considered as the department's new chairman. Instead of getting the top spot, he resigned. Later he sued the university, contending that he had been improperly forced out. He lost. More than 20 years later, he describes himself as a retired professor of anthropology and independent scholar of Afghanistan. According to his curriculum vitae, he has taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan at Dearborn and Michigan State University for the past 14 years. http://chronicle.com Section: Special Report Volume 51, Issue 17, Page A12 | |||||||||||||||
Copyright © 2004 by The Chronicle of Higher Education