Professor Tribe's attack on book by Stanford Law School dean

Although Professor Tribe has not said anything further about the Weekly Standard story on him, on October 24 he published a book review in the New York Times in which he sharply attacks a recent book on judicial review by Larry Kramer, the new dean of the Stanford Law School. See here.

For a blog post about Professor Tribe's book review, which focuses on its unusually harsh tone, see here.

Update (11/25)

On November 21, Dean Kramer published a reply to Professor Tribe's book review, here.

Professor Tribe's reply, also published on November 21, is here.

Some commentary on Amazon.com taking issue with the harshness of Professor Tribe's criticism can be found here.

HARVARD PLAGIARISM -- links through Oct. 23

This post collects the news and blog items which have appeared since our October 3 post. Please e-mail us if you know of anything we've missed.

The items of greatest importance have appeared in two places: on Dean Velvel's blog, and in the Harvard student newspapers. The two most important items are the further responses of Professor Ogletree and Professor Dershowitz to the charges made against then. We continue to have questions about some of what each has said, but they both deserve credit for coming forward and addressing the charges.

No such credit is due Professor Tribe, unfortunately. We are disappointed that even after being attacked in three separate items in the Harvard Law School newspaper (Oct. 7 issue), and being made the butt of a joke by respected federal appellate judge and prolific legal scholar Richard Posner (Oct. 19 presentation at Harvard Law School), Professor Tribe has had nothing to say about the plagiarism charges against him except for the brief, incomplete statement he e-mailed the press on September 26.

Professor Tribe has offered comments to the media on hundreds if not thousands of stories, big and small, since he began teaching. Professor Tribe in the past has regularly written letters to the editor when he believed media coverage of him had been inaccurate or unfair (including a letter to the Wall Street Journal about his 1985 book in which he plagiarized Professor Abraham, as the Weekly Standard article mentioned). Professor Tribe was quite active before September 26 in commenting on the plagiarism stories involving Professors Ogletree and Goodwin (for example, a Boston Globe interview, a letter to the editor of the Harvard Crimson, and an e-mail to Dean Velvel). Professor Tribe has been uncharacteristically silent since September 26 regarding his own plagiarism story.

Unlike Professors Ogletree and Dershowitz, who have each issued detailed statements on how the book at issue was produced and have each granted interviews, Professor Tribe has given no explanation as to how his 1985 book was produced. Professor Tribe has said nothing about the mechanics of the writing process that resulted in the similarities between his book and Professor Abraham's book. In particular Professor Tribe has said nothing about the report in the Weekly Standard article that much of the book was written for him by a first-year law student, making his situation similar to that of Professor Ogletree, who (according to Professor Ogletree and former Harvard president Derek Bok) had law students write much of his book for him. Professor Tribe has not granted any interviews. Professor Tribe has not written any letter to the editor or any e-mail to be posted on a website covering such matters.

Unlike Professors Ogletree and Dershowitz, it seems Professor Tribe's strategy is to say nothing further about the substance of the charges or anything else, and to try to restore his reputation through the use of surrogates who likewise avoid the substance of the charges.

This may be a counterproductive strategy, because people are generally much quicker to excuse the mistakes of those who are candid about exactly what they have done wrong and who do not try to take a vague or ambiguous position. Also, a complete and candid explanation leaves nothing further to inquire into and little basis for further stories, so that attention to the underlying mistakes typically dies down quickly. But perhaps we are wrong, and perhaps Professor Tribe will ultimately benefit from his current avoidance strategy. Still, even if it pays off for him, we expected more from a scholar with his reputation.

If Professor Tribe does not personally comment further in the near future, we will do our best, time permitting, to further pursue the issues related to his use of surrogates and the underlying plagiarism, although we are hopeful professional journalists will be interested in pursuing this story as we would prefer to stick to covering stories that others write. We have been withholding further comment to give Professor Tribe an adequate opportunity to respond, and we will continue doing so for a reasonable time.

Here is a brief summary of the most important posts set out below which are specifically related to the stories on Professors Ogletree, Dershowitz, and Tribe.

Professor Ogletree. On October 4, in his blog Dean Velvel reprinted an e-mail from Professor Ogletree responding to Dean Velvel's criticism of his description of the plagiarism charges against Professor Tribe as being "nonsense," as quoted in The Harvard Crimson on September 27. Professor Ogletree basically states he was misquoted by The Crimson. On October 7, in his blog Dean Velvel reprinted an e-mail from The Crimson whose contents suggest Professor Ogletree's e-mail to Dean Velvel claiming a misquotation was not correct. The Crimson e-mail seems convincing, although it also seems conceivable that Professor Ogletree may be able to set forth an explanation that under whatever circumstances existed, he simply misunderstood what the reporters were asking him. However, no such explanation has yet appeared. There has been no further comment by Professor Ogeltree since October 7. See the discussion under October 4 and October 7, below.

Professor Dershowitz. On October 14, Professor Dershowitz published a letter to the editor in the Harvard Law Record (the law school student newspaper) which makes what appears to be a very solid argument that it is unfair to count him as part of the plagiarism problem at Harvard Law School. See discussion under October 14, below.

Professor Tribe. On October 7, the Harvard Law Record published three items on plagiarism at Harvard critical of Professor Tribe. One was a story on how Professor Tribe's plagiarism was uncovered, due largely to Dean Velvel's weblog, through which Professor Tribe managed to hoist himself by his own petard. The second was an editorial attacking the school's administration for its silence about plagiarism by its faculty. The third was an essay about the new form of citation-free legal scholarship that Professor Tribe is pioneering. The essay, by Harvard Law School student Aaron Houck, purports to praise Professor Tribe for his courage rather than to bury him for his plagiarism. Mr. Houck, we sure hope you don't have any classes with Professor Tribe, or that if you do, the grading is blind!

These three items followed on the heels of posts by irate law students such as Amber Taylor's, such as this one (her earlier posts are also excellent):
See discussion under October 7, below.

Unlike Professor Dershowitz, Professor Tribe did not answer these criticisms by writing a letter to the editor of the Harvard Law Record to give a fuller account of the charges against him, or answer any of the students' criticisms. Nor did he arrange to give an interview to the newspaper. Instead, his apparent response to the negative October 14 articles, and Professor Dershowitz's October 14 example of directly writing a letter to the editor, was an indirect response -- to arrange to have several surrogates submit a letter to the editor of the Harvard Crimson (the undergraduate student newspaper), a letter presumably ghostwritten at least in part by Professor Tribe (which, if that's actually what happened, would be funny if it were not so sad).

On October 18, a letter to the editor was published in the Harvard Crimson by three current or former Tribe student research assistants. That letter minimized Professor Tribe's scholarly offense and urged that Professor Tribe's plagiarism should be considered in the context of his overall scholarly reputation. See discussion under October 18, below.

The next day, to some degree illustrating the damage to Harvard Law School's scholarly reputation that has already been created by the Ogletree and Tribe plagiarism stories, during a Harvard Law School scholarly presentation Judge Posner went out of his way to crack a joke based on the stories. Quite possibly Judge Posner had read the Crimson letter to the editor by Tribe's surrogates and simply could not resist the chance to get in a humorous jab. See discussion under October 19, below.

The joke is especially embarassing to Harvard Law School because of the identity of the speaker. Judge Posner, in addition to being one of the most respected appellate judges in the nation, is apparently the most cited legal scholar alive today. Last year the school awarded Judge Posner its highest scholarly distinction, the Ames Prize, which only 25 people have won in the past century. http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2003/03/07_ames.php. While he was in Cambridge accepting the award, apparently efforts were made to interest Judge Posner in becoming the school's next dean, efforts he rebuffed because, as he stated for the record, he had no interest in the job. http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=346935

Judge Posner is not the only one who has cracked a joke about plagiarism at the expense of Professors Tribe and Ogletree, and Harvard Law School. See, for example, the post of noted law professor and blogger Brian Leiter, who (half seriously?) asked: "Is Harvard Law School the Plagiarism Leader in American Legal Education?" http://webapp.utexas.edu/blogs/bleiter/archives/002116.html. If anyone else knows of other humorous jabs made at Harvard Law School's expense, please let us know and we will include them in future posts. "Comedy is very powerful, and there's no protection against it," Saturday Night Live producer Loren Michaels once observed. If Harvard Law School continues to do nothing about its plagiarism problem, despite a courageous editorial in the October 7 Harvard Law Record by its own students attacking the administration for doing nothing, at least we can join Judge Posner and Professor Leiter in joking about it!

Here, then, are the latest news and blog items, in chronological order:

Oct. 4, 2004

Velvel on National Affairs (Dean Velvel)
"Re: Professor Ogletree's Response"
http://velvelonnationalaffairs.blogspot.com/2004/10/re-professor-ogletrees-response.html
(This post sets forth Professor Ogletree's e-mail response to Dean Velvel's harsh criticism of Ogletree on September 29 for saying (according to a story in The Harvard Crimson) that the plagiarism charges against Professor Tribe were "nonsense," even though Tribe quickly admitted to them and apologized. In his e-mail, Ogletree denied saying the plagiarism charges themselves were "nonsense," and claimed: "My 'nonsense' response was to the claim 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." In his post, Velvel urged the parties to "try to clear up what happened," so as hopefully not to leave the impression that either The Crimson "quoted Professor Ogletree horribly out of context" or else "Professor Ogletree's response is not true."
For the response of The Crimson to this post, see the coverage of Oct. 7, 2004, below. Ogletree has not yet responded to this post, or to The Crimson's response, and the absence of any further explanation from him suggests his e-mail response to Velvel was not true. Apparently after the story appeared he never contacted The Crimson to complain of the quotation attributed to him, which one assumes he would have done if The Crimson had in fact horribly misquoted him. Still, at this juncture, having heard nothing further from Professor Ogletree, we would tend to give him the benefit of any doubt for at least a bit longer; the doubt should be resolved against him only if he definitively refuses to comment further.)

novalawcity, "Plagiarism at Harvard
http://nsulaw.typepad.com/novalawcity/2004/10/plagiarism_at_h.html
("Lawrence Tribe, American constitutional law guru, has been accused of plagiarism in a book he authored in 1985," generating "so much discussion ... that a blog has been created for tracking references to this story and references to other Harvard legal academics also accused of plagiarism").


Oct. 5, 2004

Velvel on National Affairs (Dean Velvel)
"Re: The Ogletree Transgression"http://velvelonnationalaffairs.blogspot.com/2004/10/re-re-ogletree-transgression.html
(Reprinting e-mail from a lawyer arguing that the real scandal of legal academia is that law review editors do so much work on many articles, even by prominent professors, that law professors are able to build up solid reputations on the basis of articles that were barely publishable when they were accepted by the law review.)
The Enterprise of SouthofBoston.com (editorial)
"Steal someone else's work, blame others"http://enterprise.southofboston.com/articles/2004/10/05/news/opinion/opinion01.txt
("The latest academic superstar to be accused of plagiary" is Professor Tribe, who "joins a long list of collagues who 'borrowed' from the works of others without giving credit -- Doris Kearns Goodwin, Charles Ogletree, Stephen Ambrose and on and on. These people didn't have to steal others' work; they are stellar writers, historians and educators in their own right. Yet somehow, through laziness, carelessness, perhaps even deviousness, they put their names on the works of others and reaped the financial rewards. ... Tribe was tripped up on passages he wrote in a book 19 years ago. But there should be no limit on academic thievery. His questionable excuse managed to insult almost everyone. He said his 'well-meaning effort to write a book accessible to a lay audience through the omission of footnotes or endnotes -- in contrast to the practice I have always followed in my scholarly writing -- came at an unacceptable cost: my failure to attribute some of the material.' In other words, as he was trying to write down for the masses, he couldn't be bothered to be less than sloppy. How pathetic.").

Oct. 6, 2004

Velvel on National Affairs (Dean Velvel)
"Re: On Ghost Writing"http://velvelonnationalaffairs.blogspot.com/2004/10/re-on-ghost-writing.html
(Reprints e-mail from Eric McErlain, a ghostwriter of speeches for corporate executives, defending ghostwriting in the corporate context. Post also includes a response from Dean Velvel.)
(For Mr. McErlain's response to Dean Velvel, see: http://velvelonnationalaffairs.blogspot.com/2004/10/in-response-to-your-note-on-ghost.html)
Bloomin' Buzzin' Confusion (David Diehl)
"It Ain't Cheating if You Don't Get Caught"http://www.stanford.edu/~diehld/blog/archives/2004/10/it_aint_cheatin.html
("Ah, it's fall and the sweet smell of academic controversy is once again waftnig through the air. Following in the footsteps of Alan Dershowitz and Doris Kearns Goodwin, two more Harvard professors have been charged with plagiarism. This time it's law school professors Charles Ogletree and Laurence Tribe. In both cases they've admitted responsibility, but blamed the copying on poor editing and problems with student assistants.").
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
"Midweek briefing"http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/archive/s_258551.html
("Noted liberal constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe finds himself in some deep and hot water.")

Oct. 7, 2004

Velvel on National Affairs (Dean Velvel)
"Crimson Staff's Response re. Ogletree Comments"http://velvelonnationalaffairs.blogspot.com/2004/10/crimson-staffs-response-re-ogletree.html
(See summary of Dean Velvel's post of Oct. 4, 2004, above. This is The Crimson's response to Dean Velvel's post urging a clarification of the circumstances involving whether The Crimson horribly misquoted Professor Ogletree as saying that the plagiarism charges against Professor Tribe were "nonsense." If The Crimson's e-mail is credited, it seems clear that at minimum Professor Ogletree "is mistaken in his recollection of our conversation," as The Crimson puts it.

With all the detail in The Crimson's e-mail, absent further comment from Professor Ogletree there seems to be no basis for resisting that conclusion. The e-mail was sent by two reporters, Daniel Hemel and Lauren Schuker. On September 26 they called and asked Professor Ogletree whether he thought what The Weekly Standard had reported about Professor Tribe rises to plagiarism. Professor Ogletree said: "It's nonsense, and Professor Tribe's rebuttals over the decades have made that clear." The reporters then read this quote back to Ogletree to verify it. Ogletree's apparent suggestion that the reporters were merely asking him about the claim Tribe wouldn't respond to the charges makes little sense. The reporters state they never said anything like that, and indeed they had just left a message for Tribe and e-mailed him, and they expected his reply. Further confirming that Ogletree was quoted accurately by the reporters, after the story was published on September 27, Ogletree never complained to them he had been misquoted, as would be expected when someone has been misquoted. The reporters also state that after learning of Professor Ogletree's e-mail to Dean Velvel claiming he'd been misquoted, "[w]e have written to Professor Ogletree asking that he discuss the issue with us, but he has yet to respond," and "we feel that we must correct Professor Ogletree's inaccurate portrayal of our Sept. 26 conversation."

Until we hear whether Professor Ogletree will be commenting further, we will assume it is possible he can set forth factual circumstances supporting the conclusion he simply misunderstood what the reporters were asking about. Until then, we think he deserves the benefit of the doubt, and we do not think it is necessary to conclude he sent a knowingly false e-mail to Dean Velvel. But if he sends no further response to Dean Velvel and never responds to the reporters' request that he call, that would raise serious questions.)
Harvard Law Record (Hugo Torres)
"Dean of Mass law school central figure in discovery of Tribe plagiarismhttp://www.hlrecord.org/news/2004/10/07/News/Dean-Of.Mass.Law.School.Central.Figure.In.Discovery.Of.Tribe.Plagiarism-748270.shtml
(Interesting article on Dean Velvel's weblog, and on the related matter of how the Tribe plagiarism story came about: "an unidentified law professor ... was prompted to" tip off the Weekly Standard "after becoming upset over comments made by Tribe that were posted on" Dean Velvel's weblog, in which Tribe stated "that the uncredited appropriation of the work of others was a significant problem." The author of the Weekly Standard article explained on Dean Velvel's weblog "the motivation behind the unknown professor. 'Tribe's expressions of sympathy for Goodwin and Ogletree did not prompt the tip ... But his Olympian declaration of a general problem did. [T]here is a legitimate disgust, I think, when people opine grandly on the general problem of which they are specifically (and secretly) guilty.'")
Harvard Law Record (editorial)
"Harvard owes students explanation over plagiarism"http://hlrecord.org/?p=10848
("In the span of a month, it has been discovered that two Harvard law professors have copied the work of others without credit. This has caused something of a crisis within the Harvard community ..... Despite repeated cries from the Crimson and students, Harvard has failed to recognize the giant insult to the student body that is signified by its tepid response. Both the University and the Law School make a big deal about plagiarism (as, indeed, they should). ... Yet, when Professors are caught doing the same thing, Harvard goes into lockdown mode, taking care of its own and never discussing the penalties for such actions. Is this the example to be set for students? How can Harvard continue to put itself forth as a prominent center of learning when it displays a lack of concern for the integrity of the work produced by its faculty?" ... From the perspective of the study body it seems that plagiarism is the elephant in the room that the school simply refuses to acknowledge. In an article in this issue, the Record covers the exchanges that have occurred on the website of Dean Lawrence Velvel of the Massachusetts Law School. It is a shame that these conversations are occurring on the website of another school. The student body here deserves to understand what is being done about this plague seeping through Harvard. ... This is a problem that will not simply go away. The question is, will Harvard continue to pretend no one is noticing, or will it confront the problem head on and make clear the seriousness with which it treats plagiarism?")

Harvard Law Record (Aaron Houck)
"Toward a new legal scholarshiphttp://hlrecord.org/?p=10890
(Essay praising "Professors Ogletree and Tribe ... for their attempts at pioneering a new brand of legal scholarship," which "for far too long ... has been hindered by the obligation to reveal every source that has in some way contributed to a given written work" -- in particular, praising Tribe's "exhilarating" approach in the 1985 book for which he is being attacked, in which "he bypassed the citation system altogether," so he "was able to record his stream of consciousness" and thereby "race on toward new frontiers in legal understanding, enriching fields that had been left fallow." Essay ends by applauding Olgetree and Tribe as "heroes of history," "for having the courage to tear at the walls restricting free legal thought. Like them, I can imagine a world without research and footnotes, and I am excited for the day to come when that dream becomes a reality.")

Harvard Law Record
"News brief: Ogletree part of Kerry legal team"http://hlrecord.org/?p=10925

The Cavalier Daily (Alex Sellinger)
"Harvard. prof. admits misuse of copyrighted work"http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=20873&pid=1196
(reporting results of interview with Joseph Bottum, author of the Weekly Standard article on Tribe, summarizing tip that led to story, and denying political motivations had anything to do with story)

Wired News
"Prof Pursued by Mob of Bloggers"http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,65250,00.html


Oct. 12, 2004

Velvel on National Affairs (Dean Velvel)
"[S]ome thoughts about ... folks who ... take credit for language [of] anonymous individuals"http://velvelonnationalaffairs.blogspot.com/2004/10/some-thoughts-about-folks-who-take.html (E-mail from Michael Chesson, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts, commenting on the use of ghostwriters by politicians, in particular the very effective use of ghostwriters by John Kerry)

Newmark's Door: Things one middle-aged economist finds interestinghttp://newmarksdoor.typepad.com/mainblog/2004/10/academics_writi.html

Oct. 14, 2004Harvard Law Record, letter to the editor
Professor Alan Dershowitz
"Dershowitz responds to accusations"http://hlrecord.org/?p=11232
(Responding to letter to the editor in September 24 issue, see here: http://www.hlrecord.org/news/2004/09/24/Opinion/Letters.To.The.Editor-731263.shtml.
(Professor Dershowitz makes a strong argument that, focusing on the substance of the issues concerning his book, it is unfair for him to be included as part of the plagiarism problem at Harvard Law School, along with Professors Ogletree and Tribe. We still believe there is a solid basis, however, to question Dershowitz's candor in his initial reactions to the plagiarism charges, as we will likely explain in a future post.)

See also clarifications at:http://www.hlrecord.org/news/2004/10/21/Opinion/Record.Clarification.Dershowitz.Clarifies.Accuser-776163.shtml"
andhttp://www.hlrecord.org/news/2004/10/21/Opinion/Record.Clarification.Hudson.Responds-776165.shtml

Oct. 17Boston Globe, "On the Down Low"
Marcella Bombardieri and Jenna Russellhttp://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2004/10/17/umass_higher_ups_going_even_higher_up ("Harvard has been mum about how it is handling accusations against law professor Laurence Tribe, who a few weeks ago apologized for borrowing from another author's writing in a 19-year-old book. It's a notable contrast to how Harvard Law School dealt with the case of Charles Ogletree, who just weeks before Tribe, acknowledged lifting paragraphs from someone else's book. Dean Elena Kagan appointed former president Derek Bok and former dean Robert Clark to investigate, and then Ogletree published a long statement explaining the situation. Ogletree also said he faced some kind of sanction, although neither he nor school officials will say what it is. In Tribe's case, Harvard won't even say it is investigating ....")


Oct. 18, 2004
Harvard Crimson, letter to the editor
Michael Fertik, John O'Quinn, and Jocelyn Benson
"Tribe's plagiarism should be considered in context"http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=503878
(Letter by Tribe surrogates (current or former research assistants) arguing that Professor Tribe's plagiarism should be considered in context. The three surrogates assert (without explaining the basis of their assertion or the source of their knowledge) that the plagiarism was "inadvertent," and "isolated," and confined to "a few isolated sentences" -- contrary to the as yet unrebutted Weekly Standard article pointing to a premeditated effort to rearrange sentences and change words to disguise the plagiarism, and contrary to Professor Tribe's admission that he failed to credit Professor Abraham's book as a book heavily used in writing his book.

The three surrogates mention that Professor Tribe in his book "acknowledges" Professor Abraham's book as the leading political history of appointments to the Supreme Court. They fail to mention that this was done at the back of his book, in a section merely making suggestions for further reading. They fail to mention that in his preface Professor Tribe expressly denigrated such political histories as inferior to his own book in light of his own superior credentials (and implicitly, Professor Abraham's inferior credentials). They fail to mention that nowhere in his book did Professor Tribe say he had relied in any way on Professor Abraham's book, so in the end he did not give any attribution at all of having obtained any assistance from Professor Abraham's book.

Apparently signaling a resolve by Professor Tribe not to comment further, and to resist the imposition of any penalties for scholarly misconduct, these Tribe surrogates state: "Professor Tribe has sincerely apologized, and that prompt acknowledgment should be the end of the matter." The letter ends by proclaiming Professor Tribe "America's leading and most creative constitutional scholar" and informing "the country and the legal profession" that they should be "proud and grateful . . . that Professor Tribe continues to work as hard and conscientiously as he has for the past forty years."

This letter raises more questions than it answers. We believe it was a mistake for Professor Tribe to try to deal with this matter through surrogates and thus introduce into the story regarding his plagiarism all the additional issues presented by his use of surrogates and his apparent unwillingness to further address the questions and charges personally.)

Oct. 19, 2004
Waddling Thunder, mach 2.0 (blog of Harvard Law School student)
"Posner speaks"http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/waddle/2004/10/19
(Reporting a joke by Judge Richard Posner, made in presenting a law-and-economics paper at Harvard Law School, while "pointing absently to an outline of his piece on the projector," to the effect: "'my paper meanders a bit, but I will say that it's not plagiarized.' I'm pretty sure everyone here got his point.")

For an corroboration and clarification of this, see:http://underneaththeirrobes.blogs.com/main/2004/10/amended_opinion_1.html
(Oct. 23, 2004, e-mail from Judge Posner commenting on this post, confirming that at his Harvard presentation he went out of his way to have a bit of fun at the expense of Professors Tribe and Ogletree with the following statement based on the recent stories about their use of "research" assistants to write their books for them: "My paper meanders, but at least I wrote it myself. And while naturally I have not acknowledged my predecessors generously, neither have I made a wholesale appropriation of someone else's ideas.")


AuthorSkeptics@hotmail.com

HARVARD PLAGIARISM -- more links to stories

There have been so many news and blog items during the past week discussing plagiarism at Harvard it has been difficult for us to keep up. Most focus on the latest instance of plagiarism uncovered involving Professor Laurence Tribe and a book he authored in 1985.

Most of the recent items can be pulled up through the following advanced Google search: "Tribe + (plagiarist or plagiarism or plagiarize)."

To make it easier for those interested in these issues to follow recent items, below we set out in chronological order links to the vast majority of the items on Harvard plagiarism which have appeared since we last listed links on September 16. We have done our best to include all items which have any significant comment beyond a simple link to another item we've already included. If anyone has links we have not included, please e-mail them and we will be happy to include them. In the coming days as search engines are updated, we will probably update this post so that it contains all items posted by today, October 3.

We will continue to withhold judgment on this latest story concerning Professor Tribe until he has an opportunity to fully explain the circumstances that led to the similarities between his book and Professor Abraham's book, and to identify what specific material discussed by The Weekly Standard he failed to properly attribute to Professor Abraham (so far he has only stated he improperly failed to attribute "some" of that material). To minimize any editorial slant that might be read into any summary of these items, and to get this list out as quickly as possible, we are simply giving you the links.

We have, however, separated the links to items with relatively more discussion from those with relatively less. So under each date, we first list in bold the items which have relatively more discussion and which seem more important, followed by the items with less discussion in regular typeface.

Note: After we have more time to reread the bolded posts, we will probably identify perhaps a dozen or so as of exceptional importance, which we will mark with a bolded asterisk at the start of the item. If we do update this post in that way, we believe readers who are strongly interested in these issues will want to read all those posts, and perhaps skim some other posts.

We appreciate the many e-mails we have received in the past week, and we are sorry we have not yet had a chance to respond to most of them. Keep them coming! We especially appreciate the other bloggers who have mentioned this blog, and who have e-mailed us with updates on their posts. We would appreciate if bloggers who make further posts on these issues could e-mail us a link, so we can be sure to include it in a future post updating everyone on links.AuthorSkeptics@hotmail.com


==========================================================================


Sept. 17
BoleyBlog!, “Law (Dean) Blog: Velvel on National Affairs”
http://library.lclark.edu/mt/blogs/boley/boleyblog/archives/2004/09/17/law_dean_blog_velvel_on_national_affairs.html

Sept. 18
Talkaboutcollege.com, “Harvard Crimson editorial on Ogletree’s Plagiarism”
https://web.archive.org/web/20071225135003/http://www.talkaboutcollege.com/group/soc.college.admissions/messages/71446.html

Sept. 20
Sept. 20, 2004
Wilmott
http://www.wilmott.com/messageview.cfm?catid=15&threadid=20225

Sept. 24

Harvard Law Record (Hugo Torres)
“Ogletree admits to plagiarism”
http://hlrecord.org/?p=10961

Harvard Law Record, letter to the editor
Kyle Hudson, J.D., Harvard Law School, 2004
"The buck should stop with Ogletree"http://hlrecord.org/?p=10929

The Weekly Standard (Joseph Bottum)
“The Big Mahatma: Laurence Tribe and the problem of borrowed scholarship”http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/674eijco.asp

Free Republic (discussion)
"The Big Mahatma: Laurence Tribe and the problem of borrowed scholarship"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1226287/posts

MENZ.com (Jack Marshall), “The Plagiarizing Professor”
http://www.menz.com/content/systempl.asp?PAGENO=0&CHANNEL=B00081&RESET=YES


Sept. 25
Jeremy’s Weblog (Jeremy Blachman, Harvard Law School student)http://jeremyblachman.blogspot.com/2004/09/i-have-opinion-on-real-issue-of-some.html
 
Alas, a Blog, “Plagiarism and the Use of Assistants”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041010020555/http://amptoons.poliblog.com/blog/001141.html

The Buck Stops Here (Stuart Buck)
“More Harvard Plagiarism”
http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2004/09/more-harvard-plagiarism.html


Sept. 26

Balkinization (Prof. Mark Tushnet), “‘Plagiarism’ by Legal Academics”a http://balkin.blogspot.com/2004/09/plagiarism-by-legal-academics.html
See also “correction and elaboration” here:

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2004/09/plagiarism-correction-and-elaboration.html

Class Maledictorian (Amber Taylor, Harvard Law School student)
“Professional responsibility”http://bamber.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_bamber_archive.html#109625123345607338

Palookaville, “Liberal Intellectual Giant Accused of Plagiarism” http://palookaworld.blogspot.com/2004/09/liberal-intellectual-giant-accused-of.html

Power Line (John H. Hinderaker)
“Democrats’ Top Scholar Charged With Plagiarism”http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2004/09/007907.php

Roger’s View (Roger Schlafly), “Prof Larry Tribe is a Plagiarist” http://www.mindspring.com/~schlafly/blog/2004-09.htm#2004-09-26+13:38:26+115

Baseball Crank, “LAW: Lost Tribe”http://baseballcrank.com/archives/003604.php

“How Appealing” (Howard Bashman)
“The Big Mahatma: Laurence Tribe and the problem of borrowed scholarship”
http://www.legalaffairs.org/howappealing

/2004_09_01_appellateblog_archive.html#109619889947489186
Brothers Judd Blog, “Plagiarize or Perish?”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041011144911/http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/016261.html

Signifying Nothing, “Third Time’s the Charm”
http://blog.lordsutch.com/?day=20040927#entry-1996

Betsy’s Page
http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2004/09/joseph-bottums-has-expose-of-how_26.html


Sept. 27
Harvard Crimson, “Prof Admits to Misusing Source”
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=503493

Instapundit (Prof. Glenn Reynolds), “Harvard Plagiarism Scandals”http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/48382/

Class Maledictorian (Amber Taylor, Harvard Law School student)
“Crimson with rage at plagiarizing professors”
http://bamber.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_bamber_archive.html#109631286598400539

The Leiter Reports (Prof. Brian Leiter)
“Is Harvard Law School the Plagiarism Leader in American Legal Education?”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041029051355/http://webapp.utexas.edu/blogs/bleiter/archives/002116.html

History News Network, Ralph E. Luker, “Harvard Writhing”http://www.hnn.us/blogs/entries/7591.html
Free Republic (discussion), "Prof Admits to Misusing Source (Laurence Tribe)"http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1228621/posts

Palookaville, “Tribe Apologizes, Fellow Harvard Plagiarists Begin Defense”
http://palookaworld.blogspot.com/2004/09/tribe-apologizes-fellow-harvard.html

The Buck Stops Here (Stuart Buck)
“Tribe Admits Wrongdoing”
http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2004/09/tribe-admits-wrongdoing.html

Groupthink Central, “The Legal Academy in Peril”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041125035402/http://groupthink.typepad.com/gtc/2004/09/the_legal_acade.html

Outside the Beltway, “Lawrence Tribe – Plagiarist”
 http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/lawrence_tribe_-_plagiarist/

JURIST – Law School Buzz, “Harvard’s Tribe acknowledges missing source”
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/lawschoolnews/2004/09/harvards-tribe-ackowledges-misusing.htm

Mad Minerva, “Great Moments in Ivy League Education: Hahvahd Plagiarism Archive”
http://madminerva.blog-city.com/read/837206.htm

Pejmanesque, “More on Plagiarism at Harvard Law”
https://web.archive.org/web/20070903034527/http://www.pejmanesque.com/archives/007971.html

Civil War Bookshelf, “Pesky grad students get another prof in trouble”
http://cwbn.blogspot.com/2004/09/pesky-grad-students-get-another-prof.html
“How Appealing” (Howard Bashman), “Prof Admits to Misusing Source; Tribe’s apology marks third instance of HLS citation woes in past year”
http://howappealing.law.com/2004_09_01_appellateblog_archive.html#109628305117275796
 
Public Secrets: from the files of the IrishSpy, “A Plague of Plagiarists?”
http://www.livejournal.com/users/irishspy/33763.html

Stop the Bleating, “Larry Tribe, Plagiarist: Will This Prove to be the Tip of the Iceberg?”
https://web.archive.org/web/20050306063306/http://stopthebleating.typepad.com/stop_the_bleating/2004/09/larry_tribe_pla.html

Clayton Cramer’s Blog
“Academic Corner Cutting: It’s Becoming Epidemic at the Better Schools”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041012000329/http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/2004_09_26_archive.html

Libertyblog.com, “Crimson Faced”
https://web.archive.org/web/20051211185256/http://libertyblog.com/archives/004818.html

EvilBlog, "More Harvard Plagiarism and Shame" (scroll down to post of 14:50 for article, accompanised by composite photo)
http://evilmav2.journalspace.com/?b=1095836400&e=1096614000

Prestopundit, “The Other Sick Man”
http://www.hayekcenter.org/prestopunditarchive/004465.html

Arguing With Signposts, “But He Did It”
https://web.archive.org/web/20050427232830/http://arguewithsigns.net/mt/archives/002254.html


Sept. 28
Boston Globe (Marcella Bombardieri)
“Tribe admits not crediting author: Harvard scholar publicly apologizes”
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2004/09/28/tribe_admits_not_crediting_author
 
Greg Weston, "Amber Taylor Needs to Chill Out"
http://www.helpkerry.org/mt/archives/000058.html

Class Maledictorian (Amber Taylor, Harvard Law School student)
"I refuse to chill out"
http://bamber.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_bamber_archive.html#109641978192912109

Boston Herald, “Harvard law prof admits swiping phrase from book”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041009230101/http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=46312

CNN.com, “Harvard scholar acknowledges plagiarism”
http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/09/28/harvard.scholar.ap

Associated Press, “Harvard Prof Acknowledges Lifting Passages”http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/other/1110/9-28-2004/20040928074502_006.html

Timothy Noah, “Chatterbox,” Slate
“More Harvard Plagiarism: What is it with these superstar profs?”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/2004/09/more_harvard_plagiarism.html

The Leiter Reports (Prof. Gary Lawson)
“The Exploitation of Research Assistants by Law Professors” (including comments)
https://web.archive.org/web/20041029053239/http://webapp.utexas.edu/blogs/bleiter/archives/002120.html

Rush Limbaugh, “Lots of Accidents Happen At Harvard”
 http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_092804/content/stack_a.guest.html

Foxnews.com, “Copycat Controversy?”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133803,00.html

Class Maledictorian (Amber Taylor, Harvard Law School student),
“More excuses” 
http://bamber.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_bamber_archive.html#109638835498164660

Power Line (John H. Hinderaker), “Plagiarism? What Plagiarism?”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2004/09/007922.php

National Review Online, David Frum’s Diary
“What’s the Matter With Harvard?”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041001044327/http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary092804.asp

Free Republic (discussion), "Tribe admits not crediting author"
 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1229023/posts

“Volokh Conspiracy” (Eugene Volokh), “Surprise” 
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_09_28.shtml#1096414524

J. Frank, conlawprof e-mail
http://www.mail-archive.com/conlawprof@lists.ucla.edu/msg02174.html

Erwin Chemerinsky, conlawprof e-mail
http://www.mail-archive.com/conlawprof@lists.ucla.edu/msg02186.html

Point of Law (Walter Olson), “Tribe and his kindred” 
http://www.pointoflaw.com/archives/2004/09/tribe-and-his-k.php

Seattle Post-Intelligencier
“Harvard prof acknowledges lifting passages”
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Harvard%20Scholar

“How Appealing” (Howard Bashman), “Harvard prof admits swiping phrase from book”
http://howappealing.abovethelaw.com/2004_09_01_appellateblog_archive.html#109636936304962379

Vox Popoli, “Fraud at Harvard”
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2004/09/fraud-at-harvard.html

NewsMax.com, “Al Gore’s Egghead Laurence Tribe Admits Plagiarism”
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/9/28/101832.shtml

AMA TechTel.com, “Prominent Harvard lawyer admits ‘lifting’”
http://www.amatechtel.com/news/wed/ag/Uus-plagiarize.R-_v_ESS.asp

A Complete Waste of Time, “Plagiarism not just for students anymore”
https://web.archive.org/web/20050126035630/http://mathew.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2004/9/28/150744.html

Reducto Ad Absurdum (Kevin Whited), “What’s a Little Plagiarism Among Friends?”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041014093547/http://www.reductioadabsurdum.net/index.php?itemid=4153

Knox Snooze, “We’re all waiting . . ."
http://hensonkid.blogspot.com/2004/09/were-all-waiting.html
 
Crescat Sententia (Will Baude), “Full Responsibility”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041213104844/http://www.crescatsententia.org/archives/2004_09_28.html#004476

The Right Coast (Maimon Schwarzschild), “Steal This Book”
http://therightcoast.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_therightcoast_archive.html#109639738016763871

Talkleft.com, “Harvard Plagiarism Woes”
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008051.html#008051

Houston’s Clear Thinkers, “Trouble in Cambridge”
http://blog.kir.com/archives/2004_09.asp#001199

Blog of a Bookslut, “Okay, this is officially getting ridiculous”
http://www.bookslut.com/blog/archives/2004_09.php#003219

Yale Daily News (Marcel Przymusinski)
“Professor alleges Tony-nominated play steals from her life story”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041011073106/http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=26412

Civil War Bookshelf, “As Thick as Academic Thieves”
http://cwbn.blogspot.com/2004/09/as-thick-as-academic-thieves.html

Backcountry Conservative, “Tribe Apologizes for Plagiarism”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041222083019/http://www.jquinton.com/archives/001858.html

jjdaley.com, “Crimson”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041023205400/http://www.jjdaley.com/archives/002147.html

The Commons at Paulie World, “Turning Crimson?”
http://www.paulieworld.com/blog/archives/001236.html

SCSUScholars, “Tribal customs of universities and welfare state administrators”
http://www.scsuscholars.com/2004_09_01_scsu-scholars_archive.html#109638425923583228

Off the Fence, “Harvard’s Pathetic”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041013151543/http://offthefence.typepad.com/off_the_fence/2004/09/harvards_pathet.html

Life, Liberty, and Property, “Laurence H. Tribe – Plagiarist”
http://www.dr5.org/mt/archives/000713.html

AFF’s Brainwash, "Plagiarism at Harvard"
https://web.archive.org/web/20041103161231/http://www.affbrainwash.com/chrisroach/archives/014669.php

TalkLeft
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008051.html

CRONACA
"Harvard plagiarism mess"
http://www.cronaca.com/archives/002815.html

Crooow Blog
"Tribe admits plagiarism"
https://web.archive.org/web/20041127154616/http://tvh.rjwest.com/archives/005981.html

DRUDGE RETORT
"Plagiarism? What Plagiarism? I fucking hate plagiarism"
https://web.archive.org/web/20041011190020/http://www.drudge.com/weblog/4441/unfortunate_whale_speared_by_cruise_ship.html

Sept. 29
Velvel on National Affairs (Dean Lawrence Velvel), “Say it Ain’t So, Joe”
 http://velvelonnationalaffairs.blogspot.com/2004/09/say-it-aint-so-joe.html

Financial Times, “Tribe’s tribulations could hurt Kerry”http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:rFgwQn5YB9IJ:news.ft.com/cms/s/7328fc86-11b3-11d9-95dd-00000e2511c8.html+pruzan+tribe&hl=en

Guardian Unlimited, “Harvard Prof Acknowledges Lifting Passages”
http://www.politics.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4521617,00.html

Washington Times, “Law professor apologizes for plagiarism in 1985 book”
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040928-111006-3358r.htm

Arizona Daily Star, “Law professor apologizes for plagiarism”
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/news/41098.php

History News Network (Ralph E. Luker), “On the Wisdom of Eugene Volokh”
 http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/7617.html

News Thoughts (Mike Slaven), “A Tribe Called Theft”
https://web.archive.org/web/20050125172508/http://newsthoughts.net/wp/2004/09/29/a-tribe-called-theft/

Ethics Scoreboard, “Dershowitz Defends Plagiarism”
http://www.ethicsscoreboard.com/list/dershowitz.html

Language Log, “Plagiarism and Coincidence”
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001510.html

Rabe Ramblings, “A Tribe Called Plagiarist”
http://johnrabe.blogspot.com/2004/09/tribe-called-plagiarist.html

Flit(tm), “Beria’s Lessons for HLS”  
http://www.snappingturtle.net/jmc/tmblog/archives/004787.html

E-LawLibrary Weblog, “Citation Problems Continue at Harvard Law”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041010164357/http://www.e-lawlibrary.net/elawlibrary/2004/09/index.html

World Magazine Blog, “Comments: liberal law professor caught cheating”
http://www.worldmagblog.com/MT/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=9138

NRA-ILA In the News, “Tribe Apologizes for Plagiarism”
https://web.archive.org/web/20041028203723/http://www.nraila.org/News/Read/Inthenews.aspx?ID=4479

The Vatican of Liberalism
"Alan Dershowitz, Plagiarist?"
https://web.archive.org/web/20041019002421/http://thevaticanofliberalism.com/archives/000038.php

Sept. 30

Velvel on National Affairs (Dean Lawrence Velvel), “RE: Say It Ain’t So, Joe”
http://velvelonnationalaffairs.blogspot.com/2004/09/re-say-it-aint-so-joe.html

Center for Individual Freedom, Freedom Line
“Laurence Tribe: Plagiarist Harvard Law School Professor at Large (with Tenure)"
https://web.archive.org/web/20050313132218/http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/in_our_opinion/laurence_tribe.htm

Harvard Law Record
"News Briefs: Weekly Standard discovers uncredited passages in 19-year-old book by Prof. Tribe"
http://hlrecord.org/?p=10946

Oct. 1

The Cavalier Daily, “Punishing plagiarizing professors”
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=20756&pid=1192

Boston Globe (letter to the editor, Allan Cobb)
"Lawyers, take responsibility"

Oct. 3
Boston Globe (Marcella Bombardieri and Jenna Russell)
"Blogrolling"
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2004/10/03/does_the_sat_matter_bates_raises_questions?mode=PF

PROFESSOR LAURENCE TRIBE -- Harvard Crimson article

The Harvard Crimson (the undergraduate student newspaper) published an article this morning in which Professor Tribe began confronting the charges of scholarly misconduct contained in the Weekly Standard article. We will await his more detailed statement or letter to the editor further addressing these charges, and the results of journalists' interviews with him, before offering any commentary.

Below is the text of an e-mail we sent today to various media outlets summarizing part of the Harvard Crimson article and linking to the Weekly Standard article and this webblog. We thank Professor Glenn Reynolds of "Instapundit" fame for mentioning our webblog. See: http://instapundit.com/archives/018066.php. We recommend his post. It offers some perspective, warning against any rush to judgment, with a discussion of the perils of "parallel-hunting." It links to a chapter on plagiarism from an ethics book co-authored by Professor Reynolds. It links to important commentary by Professor Mark Tushnet.

Finally, Professor Reynolds observes that "beyond questions of plagiarism[,] [g]etting together a bunch of research assistants and outsourcing a book to them, with the product of their work appearing under one's own name, isn't exactly immoral -- but it isn't scholarship, either. ... Whether it results in plagiarism, or simply a shoddy product, you're not getting the work product of the person whose name is on the cover." In this connection, it will be interesting to see Professor Tribe's comments on the Weekly Standard''s report that a major legal newspaper in 1993 cited several sources to the effect that much of the book in question was written for Professor Tribe by a first-year law student.

===================================================================

27 September 2004
PROFESSOR TRIBE ADMITS TO “SOME” PLAGIARISM
AuthorSkeptics@hotmail.com

In the third plagiarism story to hit Harvard Law School in the past 12 months, Professor Laurence Tribe has admitted to “some” plagiarism of Professor Henry Abraham’s classic 1974 book on Supreme Court appointments. See article in today’s Harvard Crimson, “Prof Admits to Misusing Source,” here:
http://www.thecrimson.com/today/article503493.html (admitting “‘failure to attribute some of the material The Weekly Standard identified’” in its recent article, see here: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/674eijco.asp,
although apparently not explaining what material he believes was properly attributed).

The Harvard Crimson article reports that last week Harvard president Lawrence Summers stated that despite the plagiarism accusations against two Harvard Law School professors made in the past year (Alan Dershowitz and Charles Ogletree), “he did not see ‘a big trend’ of plagiarism problems at the Law School,” but “a third case would change his mind. ‘If you had a third one, then ... okay, you get to say this is a special thing, a focused problem at the Law School’....”

Despite the “crystal-clear definition of plagiarism” under Harvard’s rules applicable to students, under which Tribe’s admitted failure to attribute would be a violation if done by a student, the Harvard Crimson article states that Professor Dershowitz is defending Professor Tribe, in part, on the ground that “guidelines in the legal profession are murkier,” and there is “a ‘cultural difference’ between sourcing in the legal profession and other academic disciplines.”

For more background on stories involving the four Harvard-affiliated scholars accused of plagiarism in the past two years, see our webblog, at http://authorskeptics.blogspot.com, recently discussed in the“Instapundit” weblog, at http://instapundit.com/archives/018066.php.

AuthorSkeptics@hotmail.com

PROFESSOR LAURENCE TRIBE

(The fourth plagiarism story involving a Harvard scholar during the past two years involves Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School. The story was broken by the Weekly Standard on September 24. Below is the text of the final e-mail we sent out on September 25 just prior to setting up this blog, of our "HARVARD PLAGIARISM UPDATE," Revision 4.3. In it we discussed the Weekly Standard story and also announced we were adopting the suggestion of a Harvard Law School student that we change our name from "OgletreeSkeptics" to "AuthorSkeptics," to avoid undue focus on Professor Ogletree or for that matter any other particular professor, and to encourage more of a focus on the important institutional issues posed by these stories.)


HARVARD PLAGIARISM UPDATE 4.3:
"OgletreeSkeptics" changed to "AuthorSkeptics";
Weekly Standard story on Professor Tribe

This is to inform the Harvard campus newspapers and everyone else being blind copied on this e-mail who in the past have received one or more of our HARVARD PLAGIARISM updates that in response to an excellent suggestion in a post by a Harvard Law School student, Jeremy Blachman (see here: http://jeremyblachman.blogspot.com/2004/09/i-have-opinion-on-real-issue-of-some.html), prompted in part by a new Weekly Standard story alleging scholarly misconduct by Professor Tribe (see here: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/674eijco.asp), we have changed the name under which we will send out any further updates.

Instead of "OgletreeSkeptics" the name is now "AuthorSkeptics." Our e-mail address is now AuthorSkeptics@hotmail.com." Our news summaries will no longer be called "Ogletree News Archive." They will be called "Harvard Plagiarism Archive."

We should make clear this suggestion, though welcome, was unsolicited. Neither Mr. Blachman nor anyone on the Harvard Law School Record has had any connection to "OgletreeSkeptics."

We are making this change because Mr. Blachman’s comments show the name we chose for sending out our e-mails risks misunderstanding. Mr. Blachman credits us for helping bring some attention to plagiarism issues at Harvard but says, "I think OgletreeSkeptics ought to change its name to AuthorSkeptics and instead of trying to create some momentum around attacking Ogletree, perhaps create some momentum around trying to change the way the industry works, if this is the way the industry works."

We found the following analysis by Mr. Blachman, which is deserving of quotation and discussion, persuasive to our decision to change our name so as to not to seem to unfairly target Professor Ogletree in the process of addressing the broad institutional issues implicated by the stories addressing possible scholarly misconduct at Harvard. Mr. Blachman writes:

"I feel bad for Prof. Ogletree. ... I feel bad for him because the sense I get is that what he did is something everyone does, and he just got unlucky enough to have research assistants who accidentally messed up and screwed him over. This is bad for academia; it says bad things about the way people write books today.... I think [Dean] Velvel is right that Ogletree's assistants probably did a substantial deal more than assistants might do in a world with the highest standards of honesty and integrity. But I think Velvel's wrong to say that it means ... Ogletree wasn't competent and diligent without saying that it probably means everyone else isn't competent and diligent either, and Ogletree just got unlucky.

"And here's the problem I see: whether or not I'm right about this being a problem throughout academia and the larger world beyond it, it's not an unreasonable conclusion to draw. And what this means is that if there are professors acting with integrity, and having research assistants assist with research instead of actually writing their books, they get hurt by the implication that there's dishonest stuff going on everywhere. So people start to doubt even the ‘good eggs,’ and their reputations get hurt. This is bad. This is bad because it'll encourage people who are acting with integrity now to stop acting with integrity, because everyone's going to assume they aren't anyway, so why not cut corners?"

Mr. Blachman’s comments are well-meaning and constructive and have led us to adopt the name he has suggested, which is an excellent one. However, to clarify, our point never has been to focus on Professor Ogletree’s plagiarism, or on Professor Ogletree personally. We picked the first part of "OgletreeSkeptics" because Professor Ogletree was the third and latest Harvard scholar accused of plagiarism in the past two years. So it was topical, and we decided to include his name, even though our e-mails summarized coverage of all three plagiarism stories. As explained in Revision 4.2 (dated 23 September 2004), we picked the second part based on a news article describing a prominent Harvard Law School professor as one of "the Summers skeptics." We thought if a law professor can be a "skeptic" of the Harvard president, we can and should say we are "skeptics" of Ogletree, and of other Harvard scholars who commit plagiarism and of the Harvard administration that applies a double standard to them, conducting less investigation and imposing less discipline than if a Harvard student were involved.

Plus, the overall name was appropriate because one of our main complaints was about Professor Ogletree’s failure to be forthright about how his book was written. For that reason we were skeptical of him. On the Friday of Labor Day Weekend he posted on a website a brief and puzzling statement that seemed to go out of its way to avoid key details about how his book was written for him by others. Then he apparently declined all interviews except for one conducted by a Harvard undergraduate reporting for the school newspaper. Also, to date the dean has not commented. We believe it is right to be skeptical of such PR tactics, especially the failure by the Harvard administration to acknowledge that a student who did what Ogletree admits having done would be severely disciplined and thus its failure to acknowledge a double standard at Harvard for plagiarism, even after the Harvard student newspaper published an editorial on this exact point.

Now that a fourth plagiarism story at Harvard has come to light, involving Ogletree’s colleague Professor Laurence H. Tribe, the name "OgletreeSkeptics" seems dated anyway. We picked it because Professor Ogletree’s was the latest plagiarism story and now that is no longer the case. We had half seriously given thought to changing our name on a periodic basis to "______Skeptics," with "______" being the last name of the latest Harvard scholar accused of plagiarism. That would now make it "TribeSkeptics," although with two such cases uncovered in just the last month, adopting that approach might put us at the risk of having to change the name again soon. Some might argue it would be deserved to change the name to "TribeSkeptics," and it would show we are "equal opportunity skeptics." However, it would risk the misperception that Mr. Blachman’s e-mail reflects, that we are somehow seeking to personalize the discussion of what in the end are institutional plagiarism problems at Harvard, and perhaps at other universities.

Plus it would seem unfair to Professor Tribe at least at this point. We sent out e-mails under the "OgletreeSkeptics" name summarizing the plagiarism charges against Professor Ogletree (and Professors Dershowitz and Goodwin) only after he had already admitted wrongdoing and had failed to show candor in his discussion of the wrongdoing. Professor Tribe has not yet had an opportunity to address the Weekly Standard article published only yesterday. We have already received two astonished/irate e-mails concerning the Tribe story from professors who have been kind enough to write us in the past and give us comments and suggestions for improvement, and who we told about the story yesterday evening. We may feature those e-mails, and any others we may receive, in future updates if the professors give their consent to reprint the e-mails.

However, we feel it is premature for those professors, or 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, just as he wrote to defend himself in the pages of the Wall Street Journal on November 13, 1985, in response to the last attack made on this particular book, in a book review by Terry Eastland which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on October 31, 1985. 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. As his Wall Street Journal article shows, Professor Tribe is prompt and direct in responding when his work is attacked, so at least we can expect him to issue a detailed statement and make himself freely available for interviews and not try like Professor Ogletree to issue a brief and puzzling statement and then apparently duck interviews by reporters who seek to pin down details not addressed in the statement and to get out all the facts so people can judge for themselves.

Beyond the issue discussed by Mr. Blachman which caused us to change our name, there is one other issue that can be discussed now, before all the details are in, which we will throw out for what it might be worth. The amount of "borrowing" in Professor Tribe’s book of material from Professor Abraham’s book is at the very least concerning and is something justifying investigation and discussion, however people come out in the end as to whether it is actually "plagiarism," or "plagiaphrasing" (as the Modern Language Association defines it), or some other specific type of scholarly misconduct. The heavy "borrowing," or whatever term is used, is something that has been known about for a long time, and the issue of who actually wrote the book is also something that has been discussed for years. The Weekly Standard article mentions a book review in the Los Angeles Times from February 2, 1986, by political science professor Dennis Mahoney, who stated, "Anyone who cares about the historical background should read Henry Abraham’s ‘Justices and Presidents,’ from which Tribe apparently borrowed most of his examples." As far back as 1993, the Weekly Standard reports, there was news coverage to the effect that much of the book was written for Professor Tribe by a first-year law student, which would tend to explain the heavy "borrowing," although Professor Tribe disputed that claim in 1993. Professor Abraham is quoted in the Weekly Standard article as stating, "I was aware of what Tribe was doing when I first read his book .... But I chose not to do anything at the time. I’ve never confronted him – and I was wrong in not following it up. I should have done something about it. ... [H]e’s a big mahatma and thinks he can get away with this sort of thing."

How many others have known about this for nearly two decades but said nothing? And why did it take recent events at Harvard, and news coverage of them, to spur someone to come forward? The Weekly Standard reports it was only after Professor Tribe commented on a website about the "problem of writers ... passing off the work of others as their own" as being "a phenomenon of some significance" (to read Professor Tribe’s entire post, see here: http://velvelonnationalaffairs.blogspot.com/2004/09/re-ogletree-transgression.html) that a law professor, who if Mahoney and Abraham are any indication knew about this years ago, was moved to contact the Weekly Standard and suggest it "take a look at Tribe’s own God Save This Honorable Court" in case it "wanted to explore" that particular problem.

Why would a law professor do nothing for years and only report on Professor Tribe after he in effect placed a "KICK ME!" sign on his own back by commenting for Dean Velvel’s website about the evils of plagiarism? Only then did the law professor bother to contact a news organization. How many other instances of possible scholarly misconduct either at Harvard or elsewhere are out there but to date have not been examined because those who have committed possible scholarly misconduct have refrained from publicly speaking up about the "problem of writers ... passing off the work of others as their own," and thus have avoided triggering the ire of others in their field with a low tolerance for hypocrisy? This is perhaps something meriting discussion even at this early stage in the story. It is a matter with institutional implications for how scholarly work is done and whether scholars have much to fear in the way of consequences even if other scholars notice their misdeeds. Whether or not there is in effect a "code of silence" among members of academia concerning possible scholarly misconduct, at least possible scholarly misconduct by the "celebrity" professors Dean Velvel derides, has importance far beyond the particular scholars involved in this situation.

AuthorSkeptics@hotmail.com
[cc] (see http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/cc.html;
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0)

Our 9/23/04 e-mail on who we are

(On September 23, we sent out an e-mail which was principally devoted to setting forth our e-mail exchange with Professor Bruce Jackson regarding who is/are the "OgletreeSkeptics," the name we were using at that time. For those who are interested in this and did not receive the e-mail, we reprint it here, except we have deleted the older material that originally appeared at the bottom of the e-mail (see posts below for that information).)

HARVARD PLAGIARISM # 4.2 –
Who is/are the "OgletreeSkeptics"?
OGLETREE NEWS ARCHIVE
23 SEPTEMBER 2004

This is Revision 4.2 of the OGLETREE NEWS ARCHIVE. Revision 4.1 was e-mailed a week ago, on September 16, 2004, as it appears below after the double lining. There has been little additional news coverage of the Harvard plagiarism stories in the past week, so we have not yet updated the links set forth there. The most important new development remains Professor Tribe’s endorsement of the significance of the plagiarism issues identified by Dean Velvel in his blog posts, in the comments from Professor Tribe e-mailed to Dean Velvel and posted on his blog.

When we issue a new revision with updated links, we plan to feature the new links at the top of this e-mail and leave the earlier material unaltered, to make it easy for people to browse only the new links. If someone is willing to host our content on a website, that will make it easier to navigate this material and will cut down on the e-mail load.

Given the light coverage this past week, to encourage further interest in these important stories this revision is being e-mailed to a much wider list of recipients, particularly legal blogs, than past e-mails.

The only new material in this Revision 4.2, which appears immediately below, and before the double lining that separates this new material from the Revision 4.1 material, relates to a question those who have received past e-mails may be asking themselves: who is/are "OgletreeSkeptics"? Why this particular e-mail address, what is our agenda, and especially, why are we anonymous? In response to our earlier e-mails which have gone to over 100 recipients (primarily news outlets and professors), we have received a good number of approving comments, as well as some suggestions and questions. We have also receive two, and only two, e-mails critical of us, a verifiable fact, because anyone who sent us a critical e-mail that we didn’t acknowledge could report our failure to acknowledge it to the Harvard newspapers to discredit us.

The author of one of the critical e-mails was so critical that the end of the e-mail the author indicated a wish not to communicate with us further. So we did not write back. Because that author did not insist the e-mail sent to us be posted by us, we are not posting it. Although the author gave permission for us to post the e-mail if we wished, because the author is a well-respected law professor and the e-mail does not portray the author in a flattering light we are not posting it, out of a sense of decorum, as we see no point in posting it.

The other critical e-mail was quite different in tone and content, in terms of a willingness to engage us on the substance of the criticism. The author of this e-mail was Professor Bruce Jackson of SUNY Buffalo, the prolific author and journalist who among other things runs a website, "Buffalo Report" (http://www.buffaloreport.com) which we linked to as it contains one of the articles we listed on the Dershowitz plagiarism story. That is why we included him as an e-mail recipient.

Professor Jackson asked us who is/are the "OgletreeSkeptics." He candidly set forth his view that our sending of anonymous posts is unethical unless we have a good explanation for why we are anonymous. We considered this to be a legitimate point, and we engaged Professor Jackson in an exchange of views in an effort to convince him that what we are doing, all things considered, is reasonable and valuable, and not unethical. For whatever it may be worth in clearing up similar reactions others may have, with Professor Jackson’s permission, here is the e-mail exchange. Immediately following the e-mail exchange is the text of OGLETREE NEWS ARCHIVE Revision 4.1, in its entirety, as was sent out on September 16.

OgletreeSkeptics@yahoo.com
[cc] (see http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/cc.html;
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0)



From: "Bruce Jackson"
To: "OgletreeSkeptics" <ogletreeskeptics@yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Ogletree Plagiarism – PROFESSOR TRIBE CALLS GHOSTWRITING ISSUE SIGNIFICANT
Date: Thurs, 16 Sep 2004 21:11:07 -0400

Who is sending me these emails? I think this is the third or fourth I’ve gotten on this matter. Who is/are "OgletreeSkeptics"? If you’re going to attack someone’s ethics you should put your name on it, unless there’s a compelling legitimate reason why you can’t, in which case you should tell us what it is.
Bruce Jackson



Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 3:01 PM
From: "OgletreeSkeptics" <ogletreeskeptics@yahoo.com>
To: "Buffalo Report" <bjackson@buffalo.edu>
Subject: Who is/are "OgletreeSkeptics," and why not pur your name on it?

Professor Jackson:

Your e-mail raises legitimate questions. The e-mail address "OgletreeSkeptics" was inspired by an article on Harvard President Larry Summers, quoting "one of the Summers skeptics," a highly regarded Harvard Law School professor (http://www.bruna.nl/content/scienceguide/genres/forum/harvard_radical.jsp). If highly regarded law professors can be "skeptics" toward their own university president, then others should be able to be skeptical of plagiarists such as Ogletree (and Goodwin and Dershowitz), and the Harvard administrators who are enforcing more stringent standards for plagiarism for students than they are for professors.

As to compelling, legitimate reasons to remain anonymous in this situation, in addition to that article (noting that even tenured professors are unwilling to publicly criticize Summers), see:

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/ArticleDisplay.php?id=70

http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i19/19a00801.htm

http://www.realdemocracy.com/muchado.htm

http://www.hlrecord.org/news/2003/03/20/News/Kids-In.The.Court-395271.shtml

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=6015

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0220/gewirtz.php

http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/speechless.html

http://www.blackcommentator.com/n_word.html

http://www.hlrecord.org/news/2002/04/18/News/Administration.Responds.To.Blsa.Demands.As.Students.Stage.Protest-399620.shtml

http://home.ddc.net/ygg/cf/cf-09.htm

http://www.briansiano.com/The%20Great%20Political%20Correctness%20Panic.htm

Unfortunately, this is not an atmosphere conductive to non-anonymous highlighting of ethical issues such as these.

Besides, our news archive only seeks to summarize all major discussion of the Ogletree, Goodwin, and Dershowitz stories (at least those that can be linked to on the Internet). We are not initiating any attacks on anyone's ethics. We want to include all discussion, both positive and negative. Because we are seeking only to summarize coverage and call attention to aspects of the stories that deserve to be covered further, perhaps a name other than "OgletreeSkeptics" would be more appropriate as an e-mail address to use for sending out these summaries. We will work on that, though we hope someone will as a long-term solution offer to host these summaries on a website.

We only sent you the e-mail because your website contains one of the articles to which we linked. If you'd like to be removed from the e-mail list, please tell us and we will remove you.
Feel free to post this e-mail on your website if you wish. If we want to post yours, may we?

OgletreeSkeptics@yahoo.com



From: "Bruce Jackson" <bjackson@buffalo.edu>
To: "OgletreeSkeptics" <ogletreeskeptics@yahoo.com>
Subject: Who is/are "OgletreeSkeptics," and why not pur your name on it?
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 23:13:52 -0400

All that is interesting and there are important issues involved here, but, again, who are you? You’ve obviously done a lot of work chasing down all these urls and doing all this mailing. Are you a disinterested scholar? Someone who got a bad grade from someone at HLS? Someone interested in improving the performance of the profession? Why do you have to remain anonymous?



Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 11:31 AM
From: "OgletreeSkeptics" <ogletreeskeptics@yahoo.com>
To: "Buffalo Report" <bjackson@buffalo.edu>
Subject: Who is/are "OgletreeSkeptics," and why not put your name on it?

Professor Jackson:

You make a generally legitimate inquiry in asking at minimum for a category within which we fall, to give you and others a rough idea why we’re doing this. Such information can be helpful in evaluating information and particularly in considering potential sources of bias. For example the recent demand that Dan Rather generally describe the source of the allegedly forged Bush documents, for example, whether the source is affiliated with the Democrats and especially the Kerry campaign, or whether the source has some type of grudge against Bush.

The inquiry is pointless given the particular circumstances here. Unless we actually identify ourselves there’d be no reason for anyone to believe anything we said about generally why we’re interested in these issues because there’d be no way to verify it. Thus there'd be every reason to believe anything we said would be a smokescreen. For us to engage in that process would just hurt our credibility, and we would receive no credit for anything we said no matter how truthful we were.

A main reason we don’t wish to identify ourselves in any way is to remove a potential distraction and keep the focus on the substance of the plagiarism at Harvard and the failure by the administration to appropriately discipline scholars, and on its double standard with students being held to higher standards than professors. For example, last year, as soon as Professor Dershowitz was accused of plagiarism he largely avoided discussing the substance of the charges by engaging in ideological attacks on his accusers and making ad hominem attacks on them. At least as far as our participation in the debate, however limited (remember, at least to date we’re just summarizing and commenting on the news coverage), that’s not going to happen. Sure, he or others can complain that we’re anonymous (like the Kobe Bryant team has just complained that the police interview of him was leaked anonymously), but that only goes so far. At some point, the facts being highlighted anonymously are the facts, and they have to be dealt with no matter who has leaked or highlighted them.

Of course, though we’re trying hard to stick just to the facts which we feel we must do to have any credibility as we are after all anonymous, there’s every reason for those reading our posts to be skeptical of us to the degree they even care at all about the issues we’re highlighting. To err on the side of caution readers should assume the absolutely worst motives they can imagine, not just the possible motives you’ve suggested. Taking a leaf from Dershowitz, why not throw ideological animus into the mix? Even throw in animus relating to religion, ethnicity, or national origin. To really clear the air in response to your inquiry, those skeptical of our motives can just assume these posts are being sent by the most biased, bigoted, angry, even vengeful people they can imagine.

The point of this exercise is to make clear that given the quite modest scope of our posts, which are restricted to existing coverage of these plagiarism stories, and do not make any new factual allegations, it really doesn’t matter what our motives are, or who we are. We're not asking anyone to trust us on any new factual allegations, based on our identities. The posts are what they are, and they have some potential value even if one makes the worst imaginable assumptions about us and our motives. Regardless of our motives we have every reason to make our posts fair, reasonable, and accurate, so people will read them and be aided by them to pay more attention to these plagiarism issues, and therefore our work won’t be wasted. There are many anonymously written blogs out there, and our e-mails are really no different than an anonymously written blog, especially because we will immediately drop from our e-mail list anyone who does not want to receive updates of the archive of news stories and thus we are not being intrusive by e-mailing people. With any luck someone will soon offer to have these postings featured on a website or blog and further e-mails will be unnecessary. It doesn’t matter to us whether a website or blog willing to host these postings is anonymous or non-anonymous. In our view all that matters is the information itself which has whatever value it has.

Readers who don’t like these posts can and should attack anything in them they see as inaccurate or unfair, and either place the attacks on their own websites or blogs or e-mail them to us. We’ll reprint these attacks, even if we think they’re unfair, and we’ll respond to them either by rebutting the charge if it’s incorrect, or fixing the problem if we’re in the wrong. By doing that we will increase the credibility of our posts over the long term by demonstrating we’re responsible journalists/commentators.

Because we’ve stuck so closely to the facts, we predict there will be few attacks on the accuracy or fairness of our posts, those few will be covered by us, people receiving these posts who have made attacks will compare notes and realize no one has attacked our posts without the attack being publicly discussed, and the end result is that our posts will have added credibility because they will have withstood the process of our encouraging attacks on them.

We’ll respect the privacy of those who write us. If they wish they may use their real name and authorize us to use their name in reprinting anything they write. If they wish they may use their real name but ask us not to include their identity in reprinting anything they write. If they wish they may write us anonymously. Beyond being the fair and decent thing to do, by respecting the privacy of those who write us we will be further demonstrating our responsible handling of these issues and in that way increasing the credibility of our entire effort. We’re not doing this to waste our time or as some sort of prank. We want to have a real effect, however small, on how these issues are handled in academia.

We would be pleased if updating and sending out our news archive becomes unnecessary because the Harvard administration quickly arranges for an independent, outside investigation of the Ogletree plagiarism and the two other recent instances of plagiarism, and announces that in the future students and professors will be held to at least the same standards regarding plagiarism (though professors, one would think, should be held to higher standards). Those affiliated with academics, not just at Harvard but elsewhere, who are uncomfortable with or upset by these anonymous posts should perhaps look to the root problem that has led to them being sent out, rather than focusing on the motives or ethics of the person or persons sending them. Your e-mails do, however, raise generally legitimate issues, and you have been candid and up front in addressing them, and we thought we owed it to you to take them seriously and answer them as fully as we feel comfortable answering them.

Unless we hear otherwise by Monday noon (Eastern time) we’ll assume we’re free to reprint or summarize your e-mails and/or your name in future revisions of our news archive, since we asked you about this in our earlier e-mail and you did not object to our using your name. If we quote or summarize you, we will do so accurately. If you do object to our using your name, we’ll reprint your e-mails and describe you only as a prominent professor and prolific author at a well-regarded public university in the Northeast.

As we said earlier you’re free to reprint on your website or elsewhere all e-mails you receive from us.

OgletreeSkeptics@yahoo.com



From: "Bruce Jackson" <bjackson@buffalo.edu>
To: "OgletreeSkeptics" <ogletreeskeptics@yahoo.com>
Subject: Who is/are "OgletreeSkeptics," and why not put your name on it?
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 15:24:01 -0400

Folks--

All the points you raise and discuss are good and valid, which means, I guess, I agree with them. The web is a place where people should critically examine what they find and make up their own minds. Caveat lector. I knew a bit about the Dershowitz affair, so I was comfortable (as you know) posting material regarding it on my own web site. I don't know anything about the Ogletree affair except what I've read in your mailings. Because of the vigor of those mailings I did indeed wonder if you had a jones against Ogletree, against Harvard, or against academics who apparently carelessly paste their name on the work of other people. You told me, properly I think, that none of that should matter: the material was there for me (and others) to do with as I might, and the web is there and other sources are there for me to delve more deeply into any of this should I wish. Your mailings were collections of things already available; the interpretations of those things, the decision about the validity of each, was up to anyone who clicked on any of the links, as is always the case on the web.

I'd like everybody to be free enough to put his or her name on anything out here in the free land of the web, but clearly that is not possible. Some of the best reporters on my own site have to write under pseudonyms. That is, as it is for each of us, the writer's call.

About using my emails: go right ahead. The web is a land of no privacy and infinite replicability. I would ask nothing more than what you offer: that you quote or summarize me accurately.

Bruce Jackson