Professor Codevilla's Analysis of the Larry Tribe Ghostwriting Scandal and Kagan's Whitewash of It

A reader alerted us to a thought-provoking analysis of the broader implications of the Larry Tribe ghostwriting scandal, and Dean Elena Kagan's whitewashing of that scandal, recently published by Boston University professor of international relations Angelo M. Codevilla, in an article on America's current "regime class" which is available in its entirety here.  The portion of the article addressing the Tribe matter is available in a blog post published three days ago, here.

In Professor Cocevilla's view, once someone manages to join the "regime class" by associating with "the right people, giving the required signs that one is on the right side," and showing "that he shares the manners, the tastes, the interests of the class, gives lip service to its ideals and shibboleths and is willing to accommodate the interests of its senior members," ordinary rules of accountability no longer apply:

If, for example, you are Lawrence Tribe in 1984, Harvard Professor of law, leftist pillar of the establishment, you can “write” your magnum opus by using the products of your student assistants, Ron Klain and Barack Obama. A decade later, after Klain admits to having written some parts of the book, and the other parts are found to be verbatim or paraphrases of a book published in 1974, you can claim (perhaps correctly) that your plagiarism was “inadvertent,” and you can count on the Law School’s dean, Elena Kagan, to appoint a committee including former and future Harvard president Derek Bok that issues a secret report that “closes” the incident. Incidentally, Obama ends up as President and Kagan a justice of the Supreme Court. Not one of these people did their job: the professor did not write the book himself, the assistant plagiarized instead of researching, the dean and the committee did not hold the professor accountable, and all ended up rewarded.

We commend Professor Codevilla for addressing the Tribe matter, and for his perspective on its broader implications.  However, we note a small error in his analysis:  the book that, according to reports, was largely ghostwritten for Tribe by Barack Obama was not God Save This Honorable Court (published in 1985, on which Ron Klain was the ghostwriter).  Obama's ghostwriting work was on Abortion:  The Clash of Absolutes, published in 1992.   As Ramesh Ponnuru has demonstrated in detail (see here), in setting forth the historical context of the controversy over abortion in that book, Obama and Tribe relied heavily on a Supreme Court amicus brief signed by hundreds of liberal academic historians which was a fraud: it "falsified the sources on which it purported to rely, and it contradicted the published work of many of the signatories . . . ."

[ 7/17 UPDATE:  Far be it for us to claim we had anything to do with any tweaking of journalistic accuracy, but it appears Professor Codevilla edited his essay in response to our comments, to remove the inaccurate reference to Obama as a purported ghostwriter on the God Save book (he also corrected Professor Tribe's first name, from "Lawrence" to "Laurence").  This morning, law professor Glenn Reynolds of "Instapundit" fame (who has been kind enough to link to our blog in the past) posted this "read the whole thing" comment about Professor Codevilla's apparently final version of his article, which appears on the American Spectator website here.  We're posting this update not out of any "gotcha" attitude, but simply to make clear to readers that our post three days ago accurately quoted the version of the article which had been called to our attention.]

Of course, that's hardly the only publication produced by Tribe in which he and his ghostwriters have taken the material in an advocacy-driven, somewhat suspect amicus brief and recycled it, presenting it as the supposedly objective product of neutral scholarly inquiry.  Read this blog post, and watch this video.

[7/15 UPDATE: In case you have difficulty viewing the Harvard Parody videos, either as embedded on this blog or at HarvardParody.wordpress.com, the videos are also posted on YouTube on the Harvard Parody channel, here: http://www.youtube.com/user/harvardparody]

Senate Republicans Are Looking Into Kagan's Whitewash of the Larry Tribe Ghostwriting Scandal

A quick update on last night's post:

We managed to reach a staffer for one of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee who assured us that the Republicans are looking into the indications that Elena Kagan was involved in whitewash of the Larry Tribe ghostwriting scandal and -- of particular concern -- that she involved herself in an investigation of the charges that Tribe used ghostwriters to produce a book on which Tribe took sole credit as author even though Kagan herself was involved in this unethical practice as a student (as set forth in detail in a recent video, here) and thus had a clear conflict of interest in whitewashing the matter, which is exactly what she ended up doing (we credit Dean Lawrence Velvel for the earliest detailed analysis of Kagan's conflict of interest; see here).

We did not press the staffer (who we agreed up front not to name) on what information was being examined, but the staffer seemed familiar with this blog, and with the recent "I'm Larry Tribe" video put together by the Harvard parodists with our help (see here).  We hope the Senators or their staffers examining this matter will speak with Dean Velvel and other academics who we have featured on this blog.

We note that the staffer was not especially eager to discuss this matter with us, and did so only after we pointed out that if we weren't given any information on whether or not Kagan's whitewashing of the Larry Tribe ghostwriting scandal was being addressed then we would have to assume -- and report on this blog -- that even after blogger Tom Remington (see below) contacted Senator Sessions' office and the offices of several other Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee, the Republicans had declined to look into the considerable evidence of wrongdoing by Kagan.  We're happy to be able to report otherwise.

What is Senator Sessions' View of Kagan's Whitewash of the Larry Tribe Scandal?

Blogger Tom Remington, who we blogged about yesterday, has an interesting update today on his Black Bear Blog, here.

Remington points to the announcement of Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, that he and the other Republicans on the Committee are forcing a one-week delay of the Committee vote on her nomination, to insist that she answer questions, set out in his letter, concerning whether she will recuse herself from any cases involving the constitutionality of the recently passed federal health care legislation.

But where, Remington asks, are the questions about Kagan's role as dean of Harvard Law School in whitewashing the ghostwriting/plagiarism scandals involving Larry Tribe and Charles Ogletree -- a role she undertook despite a personal conflict of interest (as a student she'd served as a Tribe ghostwriter and hence had every incentive to sweep the matter under the rug)?

Remington writes: 

[T]here is no reference to anything to do with Elena Kagan and her role in covering up ghostwriting and plagiarism at Harvard Law School while she was dean. I know that Sen. Sessions and others on the Judiciary Committee have been made aware of this as I have contacted them asking that they investigate.

We commend Mr. Remington on his efforts to alert Senator Sessions and others on the Committee to Kagan's whitewashing of such matters, and we will do our best to follow up, by contacting members of the Committee to ask whether they have taken the time to review the matters flagged by Mr. Remington, and to report on this blog what their views are.

Black Bear Blog on Senators' Neglect of Harvard Plagiarism Story: "Shame on the Senate"!

Tom Remington of the Black Bear Blog made a cogent post this morning noting the importance of the Harvard plagiarism scandals to the Senate's task of deciding whether Elena Kagan is fit to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court (we appreciate his link to our blog).  You can read it in full here. 

Mr. Remington, an avid hunter and the managing editor of U.S. Hunting Today, has previously opposed the Kagan nomination, mostly based on concerns about how faithfully she would adhere to the Second Amendment right to bear arms.  In this post, Remington expresses his concern about the Senate's lack of interest in Kagan's handling of the ghostwriting/plagiarism scandals at Harvard.  An excerpt:

Like with any Supreme Court nominee, there is more to the person than simply how they stand on Second Amendment. Isn’t it just as important to know about a person’s character, maybe even to know whether they find little problem with lying, cheating and stealing?

A reader tipped me off the other day to events that have been taking place for some time at Harvard Law School, especially during the time that Elena Kagan was the Dean. It appears there is nothing short of an epidemic (at least by using Barack Obama’s standards for what entails an epidemic) of plagiarism by some of Harvard Law’s well-known associates – Alan Dershowitz, Charles Ogletree and Laurence Tribe. The history is long and sordid dating back several years.   You can find much information about this from the links given to me by a reader who claims to have been following this story for several years and puzzles over why nobody is talking about this during the Kagan hearings. The Harvard Plagiarism Archive is a good place to start and the below video I’ve posted can be found at the Harvard Parody.

Personally I have little, if anything, at stake if Harvard Law School wants to pump out liars, cheaters and stealers.  . . .  However, all Americans have a stake in this because as Dean of Harvard Law School, according to documents provided [at the Harvard Plagiarism Archive], Elena Kagan was aware of copying and pasting of other scholars’ work into books and other documents claimed by Dershowitz, Ogletree and Tribe and essentially did nothing about it. Even more troubling is that Kagan, as Dean, investigated accusations against Laurence Tribe about his using students to ghostwrite and plagiarizing for his book and other works. A real conflict of interest exists here in that Kagan used to ghostwrite for Tribe.

Plagiarism is a serious offense. Caught in the act, a student will be bounced out on their ear but evidently it is an acceptable practice at Harvard Law School for professors and staff; at least under Kagan’s watch. The ramifications of stealing another person’s scholarship goes far beyond the obvious dishonesty and threatens the very foundation of academic scholarship, much as Climategate has rattled and cracked the scientific world leaving millions not knowing who to believe or trust.

. . .  Why isn’t this being discussed during the Kagan nomination process? This knowledge challenges the very core of a person’s character; the very ethos no American should desire to see of a person sitting on the highest court in this land.

Surely members of the Senate must be aware of this . . . aren’t they? Do they want to know? How deeply tied are these Senators to Dershowitz, Ogletree and Tribe? Is this all just Washington “business as usual/politics as usual”?

For Elena Kagan, as dean of any college, to show such disregard for obvious plagiarism is an abomination but to take it upon herself to investigate the person she used to ghostwrite for, simply reeks of dishonesty and a cover-up or better yet a good, old-fashioned Washington, D.C. whitewash.

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Shame on the Senate for not getting to the bottom of this in their vetting process. If you think this information is important in selecting a Justice to sit on the Supreme Court, pass it on to everyone you know and most importantly, send it to your Senator.