Sun Aug 11 19:34:56 EDT 1996
================= ECONHIST.TEACH POSTING =================
*******************Eh.Teach Editor's Note**********
The following is forwarded from Aera-F. It would
certainly seem to illustrate why some care is warranted
in dealing with plagiarism and other academic honesty/ethics
issues both in teaching and in other spheres of academic
activity. The case described also bears at least
tangentially on economic history in that person charged
in the incident described below is the editor of the
posthumously published collection of important essays
by Raymond de Roover, _Business, Banking, and Economic
Thought_. The various queries and discussion issues
that accompany this report were posed by editors on
other lists from which this is forwarded. However,
discussion by eh.teach subscribers is invited.
*****************************************************
Anyone Care to Defend This Schmuck?
+++++++++++++++
>From the 8/9/96 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education (p. A18):
U. of Chicago Panel Finds Professor of Guilty of Plagiarism
CHICAGO
A committee at the University has found a history professor guilty of
plagiarism for publishing under his own name a book review that was actually
written by his research assistant.
The professor, Julius Kirshner, is a former co-editor of The Journal of
Modern History. The complaint against him arose in 1991, when John B.
Williams, then research assistant at the university, discovered that a book
review he had written on medieval church politics had been published in the
journal under Mr. Kirshner's name.
John H. Coatsworth, now a professor of Latin American studies at Harvard
University, was chairman of the history department at Chicago when the
problem came up. In an interview, he said he had tried to end the dispute by
adding Mr. William's name to the review as a co-author. If he had known that
Mr. Kirshner had not contributed to the article, Mr. Coatsworth said, he
would not have tried to resolve the situation that way.
STILL A TENURED PROFESSOR
Mr. Williams accepted the resolution. But in an interview, he said he
always had maintained that "a more accurate correction would name me as the
only author."
In 1995, Mr. Williams, a researcher for the the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee, wrote to the university's president and to the American
Historical Association about the incident.
The university declined to discuss the case in detail. Jonathan Kleinbard,
a spokesman for Chicago, said its standing committee on academic fraud had
determined that Mr. Kirshner was guilty of plagiarism, but not of intentional
academic fraud. It said he had mistakenly assumed that he owned the ideas
expressed in the review because the student was his assistant was his
assistant.
Mr. Kirshner is still a tenured professor at Chicago, and university
officials were sketchy on his punishment. They did say that he would not be
allowed to teach graduate courses or work with students for five years. He
will teach undergraduate courses.
Mr. kirshner did not return a reporter's phone calls. However, in a story
in the Chicago Tribune, he said, "I feel exonerated. I'm still teaching
here."
The managing editor of the modern history journal said in a statement that
Mr. Kirshner had resigned as co-editor in April.
--MARY CRYSTAL CAGE
+++++++++++++++++++++
Questions:
1) Would he(you) tolerate this from his(your) students? Why not? He thinks
it is perfectly acceptable.
2) Is this type of behavior acceptable (in anyone)? When does the double
standard kick in? Before or after tenure?
3) What about his prior publications? Should they be reviewed? Who knows
how many times he has done this before?
4) Why is this man's behavior acceptable in academia? Be honest. After
all, he is more the norm than the aberration.
Dan DelGesso, Ed.D.
A Former TA
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