FACING THE BACKLASH
Massachusetts Law School Dean Lawrence R. Velvel has been outspokenly critical of Ogletree and Tribe, saying that the University has treated them far too mildly.
“I believe that some sort of punishment must be meted out,” he says.
On Sept. 14, Tribe posted a message on Velvel’s blog, calling “the problem of writers, political office–seekers, judges and other high government officials passing off the work of others as their own” a “phenomenon of some significance.” This prompted a reader to send an anonymous tip to the Weekly Standard pointing out the similarities between passages in Abraham’s book and Tribe’s.
Velvel has excoriated Summers, Kagan, Tribe, and Ogletree in his blog, www.velvelonnationalaffairs.com, calling Summers and Kagan “a combined embarassment.”
“Summers’ failure to visit even the slightest punishment on Tribe, Summers’ gross failure to uphold intellectual integrity, is further proof—if further proof were needed—that he is not fit to lead Harvard or any university. He should be fired,” as should Kagan, Velvel wrote last April.
He criticizes the use of assistants in the authoring of academic work and other areas, calling it dishonest.
“Though some may think this writer’s views overmuch, to me the entire [Ogletree] incident further stimulates longstanding concern about, and may in fact reflect, forms of corrupt conduct that have become pervasive in America today,” he wrote last September.
Ali A. Sultan, former assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard School of Public Health, resigned on Sept. 3 amid allegations of plagiarism.
Gordon C. Harvey, associate director of the Expository Writing Program and author of “Writing With Sources,” wrote in an e-mail that authors should be held accountable for plagiarism whether or not it was intentional.
“Defenders of [Tribe and Ogletree] thus say either that it isn’t a case of plagiarism, since it was accidental, or that it’s a case of accidental plagiarism,” he wrote. “But even when it’s accidental, however, or the fault of a careless sub-researcher, the professor is responsible for the carelessness.”
He said that careless students can be placed on probation or made to take tutorials on using sources. However, he called such measures impractical for professors.
“And so we make do with the ritual of public consideration by the press and the university and public apology by the professor, which after all, for people of reputation in a world of reputation, isn’t getting off scot free,” he wrote.
—Staff writer William L. Jusino can be reached at jusino@fas.harvard.edu.