Harvard Plagiarism Archive: Fake blog on Professor Tribe

Harvard Plagiarism Archive

"[T]he problem of writers . . . passing off the work of others as their own . . . [is] a phenomenon of some significance."
PROFESSOR LAURENCE TRIBE, e-mail to Dean Lawrence Velvel, 9/13/2004

"'I . . . delegated too much responsibility to others . . .,' [Prof. Charles Ogletree] said. 'I was negligent
in not overseeing more carefully the final product that carries my name.' * * * Ogletree told The Crimson that
he had not read the passage of Balkin’s book that appears in his own work. An assistant inserted the material
into a manuscript . . . . But Ogletree said he was closely involved in most of the drafting of the book . . . ."
STEVEN MARKS, "Ogletree Faces Discipline for Copying Text," The Harvard Crimson, 9/13/2004

"'Ronald Klain . . . then only a first-year student at Harvard law . . . spent most of his time with
Tribe working on Tribe's [1985] book God Save This Honorable Court,'" the Legal Times added in 1993.
* * * 'Many of Klain's friends and former colleagues say that he wrote large sections of the book . . . .'"
JOSEPH BOTTUM, "The Big Mahatma," The Weekly Standard, 10/4/2004

"[A]fter several plagiarism scandals broke over distinguished faculty members at Harvard's law school, including
Laurence Tribe,a group of students there set up a blog, Harvard Plagiarism Archive, to follow the University's
handling of the problem. They believe that the University, President Summers, and Dean Elena Kagan
essentially white-washed the scandal and are demanding further action.
PROF. RALPH LUKER, History News Network's "Cliopatria" blog,4/26/2005

“The Tribe and Ogletree matters have catalyzed bitter complaints from Harvard students that the university
employs a double standard. . . . The students have every right to be incensed over this gross double standard.
They in fact ought to raise hell peacefully about it: a constant barrage of letters, emails, statements . . . .”
DEAN LAWRENCE VELVEL, "Velvel on National Affairs" blog, 4/28/2005

"If you want to keep track of this story, I recommend the new Harvard Plagiarism Archive. . . . [I]t's pretty thorough."
TIMOTHY NOAH, Slate's "Chatterbox" blog,9/28/2004

"[Y]ou have done a wonderful service to all by operating the AuthorSkeptics website . . . a fine public service."
DEAN LAWRENCE VELVEL, author of "Velvel on National Affairs," e-mail to AuthorSkeptics, 4/19/2005

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Fake blog on Professor Tribe

In doing google searches to find new material for this blog, yesterday we came across this comment made on November 15 on the "Waddling Thunder" blog of a Harvard Law School student, here, concerning a blog about Professor Tribe called "The Big Mahatma."

The student observed: "I really don't know what to make of this, but I've just noticed this extremely elaborate fake blog purporting to mock Professor Tribe. I haven't the foggiest idea who could be bothered enough to do this, but there it is. Bizarre."

The page hosted at the link was not terribly informative, as it posts only an "under construction" sign, indicating that sometime between November 15 and when we noticed this yesterday, there was something fairly elaborate on the page, which is now no longer there. This was the only mention we have been able to find of the fake blog -- which raises the question, why would someone do an "extremely elaborate fake blog" mocking Professor Tribe, and then not tell anyone about it?

To try to get some idea of what was at that link on November 15, we contacted various law students who we thought might be regular readers of the Waddling Thunder blog, and one of the students had actually seen the blog (though unfortunately had not made a copy) and was kind enough to write us back. This student described it as follows (information which might identify the student in ellipses):

Gilligan,

The blog purported to be BY Professor Tribe, but it was executed in such as way as to be an obvious fake. There was a photo of Tribe in the user data box to the side and it went on at great length in pseudo-biographical fashion before discussing his befuddlement at being the subject of the recent allegations of plagiarism. I don't think it had a posted email address in the profile. The title was "The Big Mahatma" and it was several screens long, although only one post was made and there were no archives.

I found the blog around the first of November through checking my referrer logs. . . . When I clicked on the link, I wasn't able to see any links to my site, but upon some fooling around (Google cache? to be honest, I don't remember) I was able to find a previous version of the single giant post that currently graced the blog . . . . Unfortunately, I did not print the blog out or save it. I didn't link to it because it was so clearly someone poking a mean bit of fun at the professor (the first person narrative was stream-of-consciousness and rather unflattering) without casting any light on the plagiarism issue. I agree that it's a very odd occurrence and can only guess that the person in question had their jollies and is through, or that Professor Tribe somehow found out about it and asked the person to take it down.

This description of the fake blog, if anything, simply left us more confused about why someone would do something so obviously elaborate and then do nothing to publicize it, but we offer this information for whatever it might be worth.

If any of our readers have any more information on this fake blog, particularly a copy of some or all of it, please contact us so that we can try to get to the bottom of this, especially regarding anything on the blog related to the plagiarism story on Professor Tribe.

Harvard Plagiarism Archive