Re: Plagiarism and Gonzalezism

----- Original Message -----

From: Omohundro@aol.com
To: velvel@mslaw.edu
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 3:29 PM
Subject: Re: Plagiarism and Gonzalezism

Larry,

I'm glad you're onto this huge and quite extensive problem in academe; don't know how much of an impact you can make, but your efforts are far more likely (I believe) to have an impact here than on the conduct of our foreign policy.

During my first year of grad school there was one prof who was well known for taking the seminar papers of his grad students, whether it included his own dissertation students or just the rest of us I can't remember, and using them as chapters in one book or another that he was writing. They were given assigned topics on things that he knew would be useful in whatever he was working on.

But of course he was also known for his affairs with students, at least the more attractive females. He had a pad in Baltimore, while his wife lived in D.C. So it was all very convenient, French I guess you could say.

Of course neither type of behavior is now or was then (1970s) at all uncommon. If anything I suspect sexual harrassment has diminished because the femmes have gotten so uppity and many of them won't stand for it.

I'm not sure that plagiarism is more common today, or just more widely reported. I was tickled that Joe Biden, champion plagiarist in the state of Del, was stuck on the tracks by a derailment and had to miss the inauguration. I hate plagiarists regardless of pol affiliation.

Keep up the good fight--hope to hear your talk at the Athenaeum, unless I'm being interviewed about "Gabe",

Michael Chesson