Plagiarism, Part 3

Wow, so apparently the plagiarism is more serious and broad than I originally thought. Now there are 3 books that she mimicked. At this point, it’s hard for her to keep up her previous defense – that she had read one book many times and it must have “stuck in her head.” Now that there are apparently 3, and passages are nearly verbatim, it’s quite obvious that she had at least a few other books open and on her computer desk while writing…

Good for the publisher. Yank the book, throw out what’s left, and demand all payments be returned. It’s a breach of contract, not to mention a breach of morals, and hopefully this young lady finds another vocation other than writing to occupy her time.

Maybe working in a carbon paper and tracing paper manufacturing plant…

J.D.

I agree with all who said

a) Little, Brown ought to ensure that it gets its $500,000 back,

b) the plagiarist ought to lose her movie contract & any funds pertaining to that,

c) get booted from Harvard ASAP, and

d) be prosecuted for theft — which could possibly put her under the strictures of the “Son of Sam laws” that prohibit certain criminals from earning money from tell-all books. (Unfortunately, I’m not sure that this law has not already been stricken down by the courts.)

Dear Eric: It’s safe to conclude that Viswanathan will not be expelled from Harvard College. For one thing, her theft occurred before she was admitted and involved a work not submitted for academic credit. Clearly, the Harvard of another era would have known exactly what to do in this case–boot her for the theft without regard to the legal niceities. It would have been based on her lack of character–in another day, that was the onlye gravamen required.

But times have changed. For example, the Law School’s Prof. Lawrence Tribe, renowned left-wing constitutional lawyer, wrote in 1985, “God Save This Honorable Court: How the Choice of Justices Shapes Our History.” Only later did he admit stealing entire sections from a 1974 work by Prof. Henry Abraham. Tribe remains tenured at the Law School. Likewise, the Law School’s Prof. Charles Ogletree admitted the “unintentional” borrowing of six entire paragraphs from another man’s book. He still retains his chair. (In “fairness” to Ogletree, he later admitted that “his” book was actually a cut and paste job performed by his students to which he later slapped on his name!) Moreover, another well-known Harvardian, an historian in fact, settled out of court on multiple charges of literary theft. At the time, she was an Overseer of the Corporation, and was permitted to serve out her term.

So bear in mind that stealing at Harvard ain’t what it was. Today’s Harvard is characterized by indiscriminate grade inflation and professorial self-inflation, the curbing of which arguably cost Larry Summers his job as university president.

An easy prediction–other than legal hassles over her advance, Ms. Viswanathan will pay no academic price at Harvard. Indeed, by her fourth year, she may even have tenure!

Dear Eric: Update. For those who are interested, the student-run Harvard Crimson has called for this this thief to be disciplined. The editorial can be found at http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513317

FYI,
Richard