Full text of the exchange between Dean Velvel and Professor Ogletree, arranged in chronological order

As we very briefly noted here, the recent exchange between Dean Velvel and Professor Ogletree on the Ogletree plagiarisim story, via Dean Velvel's blog posts and the e-mails between them posted on Dean Velvel's blog, is of tremendous importance in shedding light on the Ogletree plagiarism story.

Rather than offering our own editorial opinion (which we may do later), here we simply present the exchange in chronological order, untouched except for the inclusion of a few links to help guide the reader regarding what is being discussed, the breaking up of Professor Ogletree's one-paragraph e-mails into small chunks, with a paragraph for each different topic, and bolding added to the three final questions Dean Velvel asked Professor Ogletree, and the two statements Dean Velvel suggested that Professor Ogletree could make to resolve ambiguities in his past statements which, if true, would clear up once and for all the charge that parts of the book in question were drafted not by him, but by one or more ghostwriters.

For completeness, we also include the e-mail to Dean Velvel from the writers of the September 29 story on Professor Tribe in The Crimson, answering Professor Ogletree's allegations they took his remarks out of context, as both Dean Velvel and Professor Ogletree reference this e-mail.

We believe this chronological arrangement of the exchange in one document will greatly assist readers in following the exchange, compared with having to jump around various posts on Dean Velvel's blog.

For further background on coverage of the Ogletree plagiarism story generally, see here, here, and here.

We commend Dean Velvel on his vigorous efforts to help clarify exactly what Professor Ogletree's position is regarding how his book was produced. In particular we admire the respect for Professor Ogletree he demonstrated in giving Professor Ogletree every possible benefit of the doubt regarding the meaning of his previous statements, and we admire the patience he demonstrated in giving Professor Ogletree every possible opportunity to further clarify his remarks.



Dean Velvel's post of October 4, 2004 (see here)

Re: Professor Ogletree's Response

Dear Colleagues:

A September 29th posting on this blog strongly, even harshly, criticized Professor Ogletree. Here is what was said, in full relevant part:

Anyway, Professor Tribe quickly issued a mea culpa, an apology, after being "outed." He took "full responsibility" for the failure of attribution. One should applaud the immediate assumption of responsibility.

What one cannot applaud are the apparent reactions of Charles Ogletree and Alan Dershowitz to the Tribe situation. Ogletree is quoted by The Harvard Crimson as saying that the charges against Tribe are "nonsense." Nonsense? When Tribe has admitted them and apologized? It is hard to believe Ogletree said that. Is The Crimson quoting him correctly and in context? If it is, what the hell is the matter with this guy? One begins to wonder whether Harvard should keep him.

Whenever someone is criticized here, he or she (so far I don't remember any she's, however) is asked if they would like to respond. Professor Ogletree was asked. He has responded. Set forth below are the relevant context of what appeared in The Crimson, and Professor Ogletree's response to me.

The Crimson wrote:

"I have immediately written an apology to Professor Abraham, whom I -- like so many others -- hold in the highest regard," Tribe said in his statement.

The 83-year-old Abraham, who is retired from his post as a law professor at the University of Virginia, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

But both Ogletree and Dershowitz jumped to defend their colleague from the charges leveled against him.

Ogletree, speaking to The Crimson yesterday, dismissed The Standard's allegations against Tribe as "nonsense."

Professor Ogletree's response says:

My "nonsense" response was to the claim that Professor Tribe would NOT respond to the charges. He responded the very day that the matter was brought to his attention, as I imagined he would. Nothing else was said or should be implied from my comment. [Emphasis in original.]

There obviously is what one might politely call a disjunction between what The Crimson wrote and what Professor Ogletree wrote. To explicitly state the utterly obvious, The Crimson says Professor Ogletree called the charges against Professor Tribe nonsense. Professor Ogletree says he called the idea that Professor Tribe would not respond to the charges nonsense.

This all seems quite unfortunate. For either The Crimson would seem to have quoted Professor Ogletree horribly out of context (as the blog suggested might be possible), or there was a misunderstanding somehow, or Professor Ogletree's response is not true.

In view of what the first and last of the three possibilities might mean, it would seem desirable for the dramatis personnae to try to clear up what caused the disjunction. One is sorely tempted to think, one surely wants to think, that there was some sort of misunderstanding on one side or the other, or even on both sides. But one doesn't know. Given the unhappy meaning of two of the alternatives, the parties should try to clear up what happened.



October 7, 2004 e-mail to Dean Velvel from the Crimson writers who wrote the article on Professor Tribe in which Professor Ogletree was quoted (see here)

Crimson Staff's Response re. Ogletree Comments

Dear Professor Velvel:

Thank you for allowing us to respond to Professor Ogletree's allegations that we took his remarks out of context in our Sept. 27, 2004 news article. We believe that Professor Ogletree is mistaken in his recollection of our conversation.

At 2pm on Sunday, Sept. 26, we reached Professor Ogletree on his cell phone with the hopes of discussing The Weekly Standard's recent charges of plagiarism against Professor Tribe. We asked him two questions. First, we asked Professor Ogletree if he had seen The Standard's article accusing Professor Tribe of plagiarism. He said he had. Second, we said: "Do you think it rises to plagiarism?" His response -- which we read back to him to verify -- was: "It's nonsense, and Professor Tribe's rebuttals over the decades have made that clear." Professor Ogletree added that he would not comment further.

Professor Ogletree wrote that we had asked him to evaluate "the claim that Professor Tribe would NOT respond to the charges." We never made such a claim. We had left a message on Professor Tribe's home answering machine less than one hour earlier, and we had sent Professor Tribe an e-mail requesting comment just 10 minutes earlier. We expected his reply.

We were, however, perplexed by Professor Ogletree's referrence to "Tribe's rebuttals over the decades." Consequently, we called Professor Ogletree's cell phone again. We left him a message repeating his quote and asking him to explain what the second part meant. Had we been so negligent in our background research to have missed "Tribe's rebuttals over the decades"? Professor Ogletree did not respond to that message. Without further explanation from Professor Ogletree, we could not print the second part of his quote. We printed Professor Ogletree's confirmed, unambiguous assertion that The Standard's charges were "nonsense."

We are surprised that Professor Ogletree did not come to us with his concerns about the article. We feel that it would have been more appropriate for him to contact us before publicizing his objections. We have written to Professor Ogletree asking that he discuss the issue with us, but he has yet to respond. While we would prefer that this dispute be resolved in private, we feel that we must correct Professor Ogletree's inaccurate portrayal of our Sept. 26 conversation.

Best,

Daniel Hemel
Crimson Staff Writer
hemel@fas.harvard.edu

Lauren Schuker
Crimson Staff Writer
schuker@fas.harvard.edu



November 6, 2004 e-mail from Professor Ogletree to Dean Velvel (see here)

From: Charles Ogletree
To: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel"
Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 8:02 PM
Subject: Fwd: Re: Corrected response

[note: original was one paragraph; it has been split into multiple paragraphs for ease of reading]

Dear Dean Velvel:

I have not visited your website regularly because of my crazy schedule during the elections.

I just read the Crimson response.

I disagree with the reporter who described the conversation when he called me for a comment.

As I said before, my comment was about whether Prof. Tribe would respond to these very serious charges, not whether the work was plagiarized. How would I know? I was confident that he would respond, and as I recall, the student reporter asked me whether I could assist him in reaching Professor Tribe.

I do not read the Crimson with any regularity, and have not followed its coverage. I have though, for the past 20 years, responded to every call made by the students, on any subject, and as you can imagine, at all times of the day or night, and every day of the week.

If there was any misunderstanding about what I said or meant, for that I apologize and take full responsibility.

You also mention on your website that I and former President Bok say students wrote my book. That is not true. I wrote this book, and it was my view concerning Brown's impact on my life, from childhood, through adolescence, college, law school, and as a young lawyer.

Other than the historical work on Houston and the Marshall/King chapters, I really try to take the reader through my path as a "Brown Baby", having been born less than two years before the decision. I think you have read the book, and know that it is an historical memoir, and as I say rather clearly, designed to reach a broad public audience. As I wrote it, I listened to several people who told me to tone down the legal jargon, and I tried my best to do that.

I continue to take full responsibility for the errors, and I should not have let the pressing deadline in August influence the final edits of the book. As I said from the beginning, no one is to blame but me, and the responsibility is mine alone.



November 10, 2004, e-mail from Dean Velvel to Professor Ogletree (see here)

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
To: Charles Ogletree
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 1:46 PM
Subject: Response

Dear Professor Ogletree:

Thank you very much for your email of Saturday, November 6th. I wish I could have responded to you more quickly, but I did not arrive back in the country until late Sunday night and have since been swamped trying to catch up after a nearly three week absence.

With regard to points, in your email, let me say, first, that it is gracious of you to take responsibility if there was a misunderstanding with The Crimson. It would seem that, if a misunderstanding existed, the situation was one of those common times when it will be impossible to retrospectively know exactly why the misunderstanding occurred. So it is gentlemanly of you to take the responsibility on your own shoulders.

In about the middle of your email, you make the following statement to me: "You also mention on your website that I and President Bok say students wrote my book." Professor, with the greatest respect, I am at a loss as to how you could write this in your email; I am at a loss to understand how you could write that I mention that you and President Bok say students wrote your book. As far as I can see, I said no such thing. I questioned whether you or assistants "wrote" (so to speak) the plagiarized paragraphs from Balkin. And I questioned whether the admitted insertion of these paragraphs by an assistant indicated that perhaps other parts of the book could have been written by assistants, which I thought might, at least in part, be most surprising if it were true. But where in heaven's name did I mention that you and President Bok said students had written the book? I am at a total loss to understand why you said I did this. If I am missing something, please enlighten me.

(I noticed this morning, incidentally, that after I was abroad the bloggers at Authorskeptics wrote that you and President Bok said you had law students write much of your book for you. Perhaps you have mixed up what I said with what Authorskeptics said.)

In your email, you also say to me that "I think you have read the book . . . ." You think I have read the book? Professor, the second sentence of my initial posting of September 10th says "I read and enjoyed the book earlier this year." You do not disbelieve that, do you?

Professor Ogletree, I know it is a harsh thing to say, and for that reason I almost feel badly in saying it, but don't the two just-discussed statements in your email reflect the kind of sloppiness which apparently caused the plagiarism problem in the first place?

One last point regarding statements in your email. Immediately after saying (wrongly) that I mention that you and President Bok say students wrote the book, you say, "That is not true. I wrote this book." Professor, without meaning to be Clintonesque, it depends on what the meaning of "wrote" is. Does 'wrote" mean that you wrote the first draft and each succeeding draft of the entire book? If so, it is public that you did not "write" the entire book, because about 840 words were plagiarized from Balkin. Or, does "wrote" mean that, when it came to Balkin's words, you personally made the initial decision to insert them, as opposed to merely reading them as inserted by someone else and leaving them in? The latter would not constitute "writing" that portion of the book in my opinion, but the former would. The problem here, of course, is that you have said that an assistant inserted Balkin's words in a draft section for the purpose of being reviewed, researched and summarized by another research assistant -- which does not sound as if you "wrote" the portion of the book at issue by making the initial decision to insert Balkin's words. But, regardless of how things currently sound, did you, in fact, specifically instruct the first student beforehand to insert Balkin's stuff? If so, this would put a new light on things.

And, with further regard to the meaning of "wrote," these points raise a question as to the remainder of the book. Did you personally write every word of the first and all succeeding drafts of the book apart from the Balkin material? Or did you have others write substantial drafts, or substantial drafts of entire sections, which you then reviewed and edited? If the former, then you "wrote" the entire rest of the book. If the latter, you did not.

Professor, with respect, as far as I know there have as yet been no answers to these questions. They are not resolved by the possibly bald statement that "I wrote this book." For, Clintonesque as it sounds, it does depend on what you mean by the word "wrote."

You know, although it is unfortunate that quotation marks were inadvertently omitted around Balkin's words, I have to say that, if this is "all" that occurred, it is a little hard to understand why Dean Kagan thought the matter "'a serious scholarly transgression'" after receiving the report from President Bok and Dean Clark. After all, unfortunate as it is, it sometimes does occur that writers, perhaps sloppily, inadvertently omit quotation marks. And, as far as I know, nobody is accusing you of deliberately omitting the quotation marks. So why is this matter such a big deal to Dean Kagan, and why is Harvard apparently going to impose some currently undislosed penalty, if all that occurred is inadvertent -- sloppy and negligent to be sure, but nonetheless inadvertent -- omission of quotation marks? If all that occurred is, if the only thing bothering Dean Kagan is, an inadvertent omission of quotation marks around Balkin's material, then neither Dean Kagan, nor President Bok, nor Dean Clark are doing you any favor by not coming right out and saying that this is all that occurred, is the sole reason to be troubled, and is the sole reason for the imposition of some currently undisclosed penalty.

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence R. Velvel, Dean



November 10, 2004, e-mail from Judge Richard A. Posner to Dean Velvel (see here)

From: Richard_Posner
To: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 3:44 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Re: [ Ogletree's ]Corrected response

Fine letter, Larry



November 10, 2004, e-mail from Professor Ogletree to Dean Velvel (see here)

From: Charles Ogletree
To: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 5:45 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Fw: Re: Corrected response

[note: original was one paragraph; it has been split into multiple paragraphs for ease of reading]

Dean Velvel:

Thanks for your comments. I appreciate your responsiveness.

All Deliberate Speed reflects my personal views about on Brown, and how that decision has influenced my life.

I did not mean to question whether you read the book, and trying to do too many things at once, I wrongfully attributed comments to you that were not yours.

I had the benefit of research and ideas, not only from students, but as well from colleagues who offered terrific ideas and suggestions. I adopted some and rejected others. Every word in the book is not mine. I had a terrific copy editor who was equally helpful on every aspect of the book. My book was not written by someone else, but I certainly did benefit from input by others. For that I am grateful.

You are right that, the haste in writing the note to you, without noting that someone else implied that others "wrote" the book, was wrong, and for that I apologize.

The same lack of careful attention to your email and the assistance that I received from others during the final week of the edits of the draft of the book are inexcusable, and merit whatever reactions and responses I received.

Thanks for your note, and best wishes.

Charles Ogletree
At 04:45 PM 11/10/2004



November 11, 2004, e-mail from Dean Velvel to Professor Ogletree (see here)

From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
To: Charles Ogletree
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 4:25 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Fw: Re: Corrected response

Dear Professor Ogletree:

Thanks for your response, and for its celerity.

Professor, your email seems to contain various mea culpas -- some implicit apologies as it were, as well as one explicit apology. But be assured that I did not feel any apology was owed to me. Yet it was kind of you to in effect apologize, and I wish to express my thanks.

Now let me apologize in turn, because of this response. I did not wish to write you again lest there be interminable back and forthing. I sincerely hope that, and at this point certainly intend that, this shall be my last substantive email to you on the subject of the discussion. But I did feel this email necessary because of some wording in your letter.

In your email you say, "I had the benefit of research and ideas, not only from students, but as well from colleagues who offered terrific ideas and suggestions. I adopted some and rejected others." So far, so good. It is laudable to have received -- and presumably to have sought out -- ideas and suggestions, and to have adopted some and rejected others.

Immediately after the above quoted sentence, you then say, "Every word in the book is not mine"-- a sentence which plainly is not to be read literally, but is to be read to mean the quite different proposition that "Not every word in the book is mine." The sentence "Every word in the book is not mine" gives rise to two questions, as discussed below.

Immediately after saying "Every word in the book is not mine," you say, "I had a terrific copy editor who was equally helpful on every aspect of the book." You then say, "My book was not written by someone else, but I certainly did benefit from input by others."

Professor, I hope I am not being obtuse or obstinate, but it does seem to me that this perhaps somewhat odd concatenation of sentences raises legitimate questions:

1. When you say that you received valuable suggestions which you adopted, and that not every word in the book is yours, I hope you are not implying that some people gave you suggestions in the form of draft language which you then inserted into the book pretty much as given to you, except for relatively minor editing changes. One hopes the idea that not every word is yours is only a (possibly infelicitous) way of saying you adopted some suggestions made by others, although you did put the suggestions entirely into your own language.

2. When you say that not every word in the book is yours, and then say that you had a copy editor who was equally helpful on all aspects of the book, are you implying that the copy editor wrote, either initially or as a redraft, substantial parts of the book? One again hopes that this is not the implication. One hopes that the copy editor did only what copy editors normally do.

3. When you say you wrote the book but benefitted from input by others, are you saying, as one hopes, that you wrote every word of the first and subsequent drafts (except for normal changes made in the editing process), and that the input from others was strictly in the form of ideas and suggestions rather than in the form of draft language which you adopted pretty much lock, stock and barrel?

Professor, as said, I hope all of this is not mere obtuseness or obstinacy. But at rock bottom the issue is a simple one. Except for normal wording changes made by others in the editing process, did you or did you not write every word of the first and subsequent drafts of the book (including making the initial decision on whether to insert Balkin's material (or other quoted material)?) I believe you could lay the whole question to rest if you can and were to make two simple statements, which, if true, could not rightly be challenged by your assistants, President Bok, Dean Clark or anyone else. Those statements would be [emphasis added]:

1. “I personally wrote every word of the first and all subsequent drafts of the book and made the initial decision on whether to include any and all quoted material, including the Balkin material."

2. "Although I received and adopted ideas and suggestions from others, those ideas and suggestions did not come to me in the form of drafts which I then inserted in the books pretty much unchanged except for some editing. Rather, I myself wrote the language that reflects those ideas and suggestions."

Professor, if these two simple statements are true, are therefore not rightly challengeable, and were to be made by you, then I think the brouhaha would be over. On the other hand, if you cannot or will not make them, then the implication which inevitably will be drawn is that parts of your book were written by others.

Professor, given the ease with which you could lay the matter to rest if you can and do make the two simple statements, and given the inevitable implication that will be drawn if you cannot or are unwilling to make the statements, I cannot presently see how any further emails from me will be necessary or desirable except to congratulate you if you can and do make the simple statements which would end the matter.

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence R. Velvel,
Dean



November 14, 2004, e-mail from Professor Ogletree to Dean Velvel (see here)

To: Dean Velvel
From: Charles Ogletree
Date: November 14, 2004

[note: original was one paragraph; it has been split into multiple paragraphs for ease of reading]

Dean Velvel:

I have answered these questions.

It is the middle of November, and my students seek my advice and counsel, my clients (including those facing the death penalty) seek my services, and my family is reasonably insisting that I modify my practice of working seven days a week.

I will attend to these matters with dispatch.

Signing off.

CJOAt 04:25 PM
11/11/2004 -0500



November 16, 2004, response by Dean Velvel (see here)

Professor Ogletree's Latest Response

Dear Colleagues:

In the attached email Professor Ogletree declines to make the two simple statements which, as said in a blog of November 11th, would, if true, lay to rest the questions arising with regard to his authorship of parts of his book. The two statements were: (1) "Except for normal word changes made by others in the editing process, I personally wrote every word of the first and all subsequent drafts of the book and made the initial decision on whether to include any and all quoted material, including the Balkin material." (2) "Although I received and adopted ideas and suggestions from others, those ideas and suggestions did not come to me in the form of drafts which I then inserted in the books pretty much unchanged except for some editing. Rather, I myself wrote the language that reflects those ideas and suggestions."

Rather than make these two statements, Professor Ogletree says, "I have answered these questions." He then goes on to give a number of at least purported reasons why he apparently (and understandably) wishes to no longer continue email correspondence on the matter. (Here he has my sympathies. As said in the post of November 11th, this blogger too does not intend to continue the email correspondence between us).

This blogger is one who believes that, especially in context, Professor Ogletree's prior statements have not in fact answered the questions and have not established his innocence beyond peradventure, but have instead led to doubt. For those who believe this, as well as for those who seem to already have arrived at a conclusion of guilt, volumes are spoken by Professor Ogletree's declination to make the two simple statements which, if true, would clear his name.

For those who hold this position, the "only" remaining questions (which would be of interest to others too) might be these:

*How frequent is the problem at the Harvard and other law schools, i.e., how often do Harvard and other law professors have assistants write parts of their articles or books? (God forbid that they should have assistants write the entirety of their articles or books. This doesn't happen, does it?)

* How frequent is the foregoing problem, at Harvard and elsewhere, in departments other than the law schools? (There has been Internet traffic leading one to believe it may be distressingly common.)

* What has Harvard done, or what does it intend to do, about the problem? Also, what do other schools intend to do about it?

* Will anything be done about the problem as it exists -- to a fare thee well -- outside the academy, i.e., will anything be done about the parading of assistants' work as one's own by judges, politicians, corporate leaders and others? In fields such as these the problem is an everyday one that exists to an extent that seems not even conceivable in one's worst nightmares about academia.