Harvard Crimson Editorial On Ogletree's Plagiarism

What Academia is Hiding
Ogletree's admission of plagiarism speaks to a widespread morally
questionable practice

By THE CRIMSON STAFF

For every Harvard student, the charge of plagiarism could prove fatal to one
's undergraduate career. From the outset, students are forewarned of the
College's daunting zero-tolerance discipline policy; that is, whether
inadvertent or otherwise, according to the student handbook, plagiarism of
any sort "will ordinarily result in disciplinary action, including but not
limited to requirement to withdraw from the College." But, it seems that
this stringent policy-aimed to ensure sincere and scrupulous
scholarship-does not extend to members of Harvard's Faculty. Rather, after
the recent reprimand of Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree for
virtual verbatim plagiarism in his book All Deliberate Speed, it is apparent
that Harvard's steadfast standards of scholarship do not apply across the
board.
Last week, Ogletree admitted that six paragraphs of his book-nearly two
pages of text-had been lifted from the work of Yale Law School professor
Jack M. Balkin, after the latter author was anonymously informed that
Ogletree's work should be investigated. However, while admitting to some
fault for his carelessness, Ogletree maintains that the text's inclusion was
an oversight due, in part, to strict deadlines and a strong reliance on
research assistants. Neither defense is excusable.

According to a statement released by Ogletree, the professor insists that he
"made a serious mistake during the editorial process of completing this
book, and delegated too much responsibility to others during the final
editing process." But while it is not unlikely that such sloppiness was a
result of editing errors rather than an egregious attempt to pass off Balkin
's work as his own, Ogletree's transgression is a serious one-one that would
likely result in expulsion for a Harvard undergraduate. That Ogletree will
not face anything remotely this severe reveals the glaring disparity in
Harvard's plagiarism policies-and the different scholarly standards it holds
for its students and Faculty.

But Ogletree's "serious scholarly transgression"-so deemed by Harvard Law
School Dean Elena Kagan-not only leaves a blemish on the renowned professor'
s resume and reveals a ludicrous double standard, it is also indicative of
an alarming trend currently threatening the legitimacy of the work of those
in academia; that is, the extensive use of research assistants and students
to do much of a project's grunt work. Of course, it's entirely legitimate to
acquire help from assistants, but that help must be limited to ensure that a
piece of scholarship is indeed a scholar's own work. When the author himself
does not recognize that a text of two pages is not his own, something is
amiss.

And while Ogletree also suggests that his ever-looming deadlines contributed
to his oversight, his work's integrity should have come first. Perhaps he
should have spent more time reviewing his assistants' work before putting
his name on it and having it published.

The bottom line remains that had a Harvard student committed such a grievous
error, intentionally or not, the College would likely turn a deaf ear to any
excuses-particularly any that involve an over-reliance on paid assistants to
do their research and writing for them. If Harvard is not willing to hold
its Faculty to the same high scholarly standards as it does its students,
then perhaps it should rethink its undergraduate plagiarism policy and do
away with the charade of irreproachable academic integrity.

Copyright © 2004, The Harvard Crimson Inc

I've always wondered how college students, who "copy internet documents verbatim"
at somewhere between a 25-50% rate depending on whose survey you read, suddenly
turn into "model researchers" when they become interns for big professors,
elected officials, or others. The answer is- they dont stop plagarism, as you
can see from the Harvard example. The late historian Ambrose had similar
problems.

On the other hand, people who have studied scientific journals, now a large
fraction of them are online and suitable for plagarism-detection software,
do not see big amounts of it. The couple of studies done so far see it
in the 1-2% range, if exclude paragraphs replicatred within same author groups
(a long known issue). I guess peer review catches some of this.