Last September, immediately after the Tribe plagiarism story broke, a constitutional law scholar e-mailed us about what he termed the “disgusting double standard” that seemed to be in effect at Harvard.
This e-mail correspondent, our very first on the Tribe matter, was Professor Michael J. Perry, the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University, who before relocating to Emory was a law professor at Northwestern University (between 1982 and 1997), where he was the Howard J. Trienens Professor of Law.
We e-mailed Professor Perry, and he promptly and generously authorized us to set forth on our blog the statement from him which we now reprint below.
We waited seven months before posting Professor Perry’s statement because, as we explained then (perhaps being overly cautious as matters turned out), we believed it was “premature for . . . anyone[] to pass judgment on Professor Tribe until he has an opportunity to write to defend himself against the charges in the Weekly Standard article, . . . . Professor Tribe has a considerable scholarly reputation, and we feel he should be given the benefit of any doubt until he has had an opportunity to address the specifics of the charges.” We also thought Professor Perry might appreciate the opportunity to reflect further once Professor Tribe made an additional statement and Harvard took some action.
Here, with Professor Perry’s renewed permission, is Professor Perry’s statement from last September which, while unchanged, seems even more apt today than when it was issued, especially in light of the concerns Dean Velvel has recently expressed about Harvard’s handling of the Tribe matter, which triggered renewed complaints by Harvard students about the double standard at Harvard:
With respect to plagiarism, it is undeniably unconscionable for an institution to treat student offenders more severely than professor offenders. Some years ago, some of my work in constitutional theory was plagiarized by another law professor, in consequence of which he resigned his endowed chair and took up a teaching position at a different institution. But he was not a celebrity professor. Are celebrity professors the new "untouchables"?We were intrigued to learn that, despite the obstacles to stripping a law professor of his or her academic position as a result of scholarly misconduct which were recently noted by Professor Gary S. Becker, here, that was the consequence of the plagiarism of Professor Perry’s work. Do readers know of any other similar examples? Do readers agree with Professor Perry's suggestion that celebrity professors may be the new "untouchables"?
Prof. Michael J. Perry
We are interested in receiving comments on Professor Perry's statement, and on the other matters recently covered in this blog. If you comment, please explicitly tell us whether, if we reprint your comment, you are willing to be identified by name.
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