Harvard Plagiarism Archive


"[T]he problem of writers . . . passing off the work of others as their own . . . [is] a phenomenon of some significance."
 PROFESSOR LAURENCE TRIBE, e-mail to Dean Lawrence Velvel, 9/13/2004

"'I . . . delegated too much responsibility to others . . .,' [Prof. Charles Ogletree] said. 'I was negligent
in not overseeing more carefully the final product that carries my name.' * * * Ogletree told The Crimson that
he had not read the passage of Balkin’s book that appears in his own work. An assistant inserted the material
into a manuscript . . . . But Ogletree said he was closely involved in most of the drafting of the book . . . ."
STEVEN MARKS, "Ogletree Faces Discipline for Copying Text," The Harvard Crimson, 9/13/2004

"'Ronald Klain . . . then only a first-year student at Harvard law . . . spent most of his time with
Tribe working on Tribe's [1985] book God Save This Honorable Court,'" the Legal Times added in 1993.
* * * 'Many of Klain's friends and former colleagues say that he wrote large sections of the book . . . .'"
JOSEPH BOTTUM, "The Big Mahatma," The Weekly Standard, 10/4/2004

"[A]fter several plagiarism scandals broke over distinguished faculty members at Harvard's law school, including
Laurence Tribe,a group of students there set up a blog, Harvard Plagiarism Archive, to follow the University's
handling of the problem. They believe that the University, President Summers, and Dean Elena Kagan
essentially white-washed the scandal and are demanding further action.
PROF. RALPH LUKER, History News Network's "Cliopatria" blog,4/26/2005

“The Tribe and Ogletree matters have catalyzed bitter complaints from Harvard students that the university
employs a double standard. . . . The students have every right to be incensed over this gross double standard.
They in fact ought to raise hell peacefully about it: a constant barrage of letters, emails, statements . . . .”
DEAN LAWRENCE VELVEL, "Velvel on National Affairs" blog, 4/28/2005

"If you want to keep track of this story, I recommend the new Harvard Plagiarism Archive. . . . [I]t's pretty thorough."
TIMOTHY NOAH, Slate's "Chatterbox" blog,9/28/2004

"[Y]ou have done a wonderful service to all by operating the AuthorSkeptics website . . . a fine public service."
DEAN LAWRENCE VELVEL, author of "Velvel on National Affairs," e-mail to AuthorSkeptics, 4/19/2005

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Chronicle of Higher Education -- Special Report on plagiarism


The December 17 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education has a Special Report on plagiarism, which is accessible free of charge on its website, with the starting page here.

Among the fascinating items which are part of the Special Report is a live colloquy featuring a number of professors, including Professor Peter Charles Hoffer, author of an inportant new book on plagiarism (see here and here).

Also, we recommend this update on the status of six past plagiarism cases, including the Ogletree and Tribe cases.


Update (4/24/05): Another periodical concerned with higher education, Harvard Magazine, has a brief but very solid item on the Ogletree and Tribe cases in its November-December issue, entitled "Where Credit is Due," here.
Posted by AuthorSkeptics at 2:05 PM 0 comments

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Dean Velvel criticizes Dean Kagan's inaction on plagiarism by star professors at Harvard Law School


Dean Velvel has posted again on the Harvard Law School plagiarism stories involving Professors Ogletree and Tribe, and the lack of morality at Harvard on issues relating to academic honesty, slamming in particular Dean Elena Kagan for her failure to do or say anything further on the topic. See here.

There has been some commentary on his post. See here, here, and here.
Posted by AuthorSkeptics at 5:19 PM 0 comments

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Harvard researcher caught plagiarizing grant application


Proving that recent plagiarism at Harvard is not confined to the Law School, it has recently been reported that a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health lost his job becuase of plagiarism in a grant application, combined with an effort to pin the blame on a student.

For the December 6 Harvard Crimson story, see here.

For an earlier Boston Globe story, see here.
Posted by AuthorSkeptics at 2:34 AM 0 comments

Monday, December 06, 2004

Another fake blog "by" Professor Tribe?


In a somewhat puzzling development, especially after the "extremely elaborate fake blog purporting to mock Professor Tribe" which we reported on just last week, here, on December 2 at least two major blogs announced that Professor Tribe had started a blog, entitled "The Tribe Blog," which is located here, but which did not appear to say much of anything.

The first major blog to report it was "The Volokh Conspiracy," which at 9:59 a.m. announced (apparently referring to the recently launched blog of Richard Posner and Gary Becker), "ANOTHER LEGAL TITAN ENTERS THE BLOGOSPHERE," and linked to "The Tribe Blog." See here. Then Howard Bashman's blog, "How Appealing," linked to "The Tribe Blog," here.

Both blogs quickly thereafter posted again, stating that "The Tribe Blog" was a fraud and Professor Tribe did not really have a blog, without explaining how they had been fooled into believing the blog was real (particularly because on its face it does not look real). See here and here.

For other mentions of "The Tribe Blog," including speculation as to whether it was a hoax on the blogs who reported it, or intended as commentary on the plagiarism charges against Professor Tribe, or something else, see here, here, and here.

Readers can draw their own conclusions, but what strikes us as odd is that "The Tribe Blog" is not particularly elaborate, and the earlier fake blog which apparently was focused on mocking Professor Tribe was quite elaborate, so it seems there are now, or at least have been, two completely different fake blogs which purport to be "by" Professor Tribe.
Posted by AuthorSkeptics at 1:06 AM