PROFESSOR ALAN DERSHOWITZ

(This is the summary of the Dershowitz plagiarism story contained in our e-mail of September 16, 2004, slightly edited in response to helpful suggestions from a professor who commented on the e-mail.)

The second Harvard plagiarism story was broken in September 2003 and involves Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz. It concerns his 2003 book, "A Case For Israel" in which, according to one reviewer, Professor Dershowitz engages in an "orgy of plagiarism," committing "wholesale, unacknowledged looting" of research from an earlier book addressing the same subject. (http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09262003.html)

Specifically, it has been reported that 22 of the 52 endnotes to the first two chapters of Professor Dershowitz’s book were lifted straight from a 1984 book by Joan Peters, "From Time Immemorial," without attribution. These 22 endnotes contain not just the citations from Peters’ footnotes, but also extensive quotations from the cited sources set forth in Peters’ footnotes.

Professor Dershowitz’s response to these reports was, at least initially, to say he had done nothing even remotely questionable. Among other things, he represented that while writing the book he had independent knowledge of the underlying sources based on his earlier research, and he stated it was hardly surprising he and Peters would cite some commonly consulted sources. In the radio interview in which he first confronted the charges, Professor Dershowitz stated that while he of course had read Peters’ book, which "anybody writing a book on the Middle East would" do, he had also read "independently probably 30 or 40 other books which use the same quotes, they’re very extensively used . . . ." http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4825.htm. Professor Dershowitz also accused his critics of being ideologically opposed to him and made various ad hominem attacks on them.

These ad hominem attacks apparently backfired, energizing Professor Dershowitz’s critics and leading them to investigate further. Ultimately Professor Dershowitz’s claim that he’d done nothing wrong, but had merely cited some commonly consulted sources which he’d found in 30 or 40 other books, sources which Peters had happened also to cite, was challenged with what his critics characterized as "smoking gun" evidence obtained from a reviewer of Professor Dershowitz’s book. This reviewer had kept the advance uncorrected proofs he’d been sent by the publisher, and the reviewer forwarded them to the scholar who had first noticed Professor Dershowitz’s plagiarism, Norman Finkelstein.

These advance uncorrected proofs contained Professor Dershowitz’s own handwritten note to a research assistant directing her to copy Peters’ footnotes into the manuscript of his own book. The note read: "Holly Beth: cite sources of pp. 160, 485, 486 [of Peters’ book], fns 141-45." Only after these advance uncorrected proofs were discovered to be in the hands of his critics did Professor Dershowitz then assert that the advance uncorrected proofs actually supported his claim of innocence, which raises the question why he did not produce them earlier. (See http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=5 (Dershowitz letter and Cockburn reply)) It would seem plausible to assume Professor Dershowitz would not have initially denied lifting Peters’ footnotes, and would not have stated he just happened to find the same commonly cited sources in 30 or 40 other books he’d read, if he had realized his publisher had sent to book reviewers advance uncorrected proofs containing what his critics characterize as "smoking gun" evidence in his own handwriting proving Dershowitz's initial statements false.

Further evidence that Professor Dershowitz lied in an effort to cover up his plagiarism, his critics argue, can be found in the fact that the footnotes in Peters’ book contain some mistakes in the quotations and citations, and use ellipses in the quotations, and the very same mistakes and ellipses appear in the endnotes of Professor Dershowitz’s book – proving, his critics argue, that they were simply copied verbatim from Peters’ book, and Professor Dershowitz didn’t even check the original sources to see whether the quotations and citations to them in Peters’ book were accurate. (See http://www.thecrimson.com/today/article349123.html)

For background concerning the Dershowitz plagiarism story, see:

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=4&ar=1

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=4

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=5

http://hnn.us/articles/1735.html

http://www.democracynow.org/static/dershowitzFin.shtml

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09262003.html

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/Finkelstein/HarvardCrimson_0.html

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=349044

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=349031

http://www.thecrimson.com/today/article349123.html

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=349122

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/1162

http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/spinoza10022003

http://buffaloreport.com/articles/031012cockburn.dershowitz.html

http://hnn.us/readcomment.php?id=20220

http://www.hlrecord.org/news/2003/10/16/Opinion/Letters.To.The.Editor-530895.shtml



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

PROFESSOR DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN

(This is the summary of the Goodwin plagiarism story contained in our e-mail of September 16, 2004, lightly edited, and including a few more links which have been suggested since our e-mail.

One link in particular we have added is to an item which now takes on new significance because of the charges of scholarly misconduct recently made against Professor Laurence Tribe. The link is to Professor Tribe's defense of Professor Goodwin in a letter to the editor which appeared in the Harvard Crimson on March 18, 2002. See here: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=180631. For criticisms of Professor Tribe's letter, see here: http://slate.msn.com/?id=2063299, and here: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=180706 (to the best of our knowledge, Professor Tribe has never answered these criticisms). The Weekly Standard article on Professor Tribe (which we discuss above, here: http://authorskeptics.blogspot.com/2004/09/professor-laurence-tribe.html) relies heavily (especially in its next-to-last paragraph) on Professor Tribe's letter defending Professor Goodwin. See here:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/674eijco.asp.)

The first Harvard plagiarism story broke in January 2002. It involves Doris Kearns Goodwin, a former Harvard history professor and a member of its Board of Overseers until she was forced off the Board after the Harvard Crimson called for her resignation because of the plagiarism story. She also resigned her position on the board that awards the Pulitzer Prizes. The story was broken by the Weekly Standard.

Although initially limited in scope, after a number of months other investigations into Professor Goodwin’s work, including one conducted by the LA Times, confirmed the Weekly Standard’s findings and uncovered other instances of plagiarism in at least two of Professor Goodwin’s best-selling history books, written while she was a Harvard professor, including one for which she received a Pulitzer Prize.

Professor Goodwin’s explanation for the plagiarism involved faulty note taking habits, not just on her part, but on the part of four research assistants who help write her books. These faulty note taking habits made it difficult, she explained, for them to distinguish between notes containing their own analysis and notes summarizing analysis they find in books written by others.

For background on the Goodwin plagiarism story see:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000/793ihurw.asp

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000/817fdukv.asp

http://slate.msn.com/id/2061056

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,197614,00.html

http://slate.msn.com/id/2061281

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june02/history_1-28.html

http://www.skidmore.edu/classics/courses/2004fall/hi361f/goodwin-plagiarism.html

http://historynewsnetwork.org/articles/article.html?id=589

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2002/02/27/edtwof2.htm

http://www.forbes.com/2002/02/27/0227goodwin.html

http://greaterboston.tv/features/btp_goodwin_030102.html

http://toogoodreports.com/column/general/shaw/20020304.htm

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2062793

http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/books/03/05/goodwin.pulitzer

http://www.onlinecolumnist.com/030602.html

http://www.robertfulford.com/Plagiarism.html

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=180483

http://journalism.berkeley.edu/ngno/stories/000552.html

http://www.thelaf.com/news/2002/03/14/News/Last-Years.Commencement.Speaker.Admits.To.Plagiarism.By.Noah.Goldstein-217639.shtml (free registration required)

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=180636

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=180631

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2063299

http://fray.slate.msn.com/?id=3936&m=3140756

http://fray.slate.msn.com/?id=3936&m=3144892

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=180706

http://mobylives.com/Nobile_Goodwin.html

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/dont_quote_me/multi-page/documents/02201537.htm

http://freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/plagiarizer.htm

http://mobylives.com/Nobile_Pulitzer_speech.html

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_6_54/ai_84107380

http://slate.msn.com/id/2064187

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FWE/is_5_6/ai_85880887

http://www.villagevoice.com/vls/177/perlstein.shtml

http://hnn.us/articles/718.html

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2069001&device

http://hnn.us/articles/985.html

http://hnn.us/articles/590.html

http://slate.msn.com/id/2091197

http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=16186


OgletreeSkeptics@yahoo.com
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0)

Introduction. Read me first!

About two weeks ago, after the story about plagiarism by Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree broke, we began e-mailing various journalists, bloggers, and professors to encourage interest in the general problem of plagiarism by Harvard scholars, and particularly the double standard that is being applied by the Harvard administration, with scholars investigated and disciplined much more leniently than are students. Our intent is to stick as closely as possible to the existing reported facts, and summaries of news coverage, rather than to try to report new facts. We thereby hope to provide a useful resource for those interested in these issues, and particularly for those interested in improving how these issues are addressed at Harvard and other universities.

To cut down on the e-mail load, we have finally learned how to operate a blog. In the next several posts we set forth various materials from our e-mails sent out during the past two weeks.

Until today, we were sending out our e-mails using the e-mail address OgletreeSkeptics@yahoo.com. As you will see from our most recent e-mail of September 25 (posted above, as the last of this introductory series, see here: http://authorskeptics.blogspot.com/2004/09/professor-laurence-tribe.html), a thoughtful post from a Harvard Law School student led us to change our name to depersonalize it, and remove any suggestion we are focusing more on Professor Ogletree than on the general problem of how scholarly misconduct by Harvard scholars is handled. We are now using the e-mail address AuthorSkeptics@hotmail.com, are using "AuthorSkeptics" as our name, and are using "HARVARD PLAGIARISM ARCHIVE" as the name of our blog, as its main purpose is to archive summaries of coverage of the Harvard plagiarism stories.

We welcome any and all comments and suggestions for improvements. If you e-mail us, unless you specify otherwise, we will assume we may reprint anything you say, but without using your name. We will not identify you by name unless you specifically authorize us to do so. You are welcome to contact us via anonymous e-mail if you wish.

We encourage any tips anyone may wish to offer regarding possible scholarly misconduct by professors at Harvard or elsewhere. Although we do not have the capacity to investigate such tips ourselves, we will do our best to forward tips to reputable journalists who may have an interest in such stories.

AuthorSkeptics@hotmail.com

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