Re: Statement by Professor Henry J. Abraham Regarding Plagiarism of His Work

May 9, 2005


Re: Statement by Professor Henry J. Abraham Regarding Plagiarism of His Work.
From: Dean Lawrence R. Velvel
VelvelOnNationalAffairs.com

Dear Colleagues:

Professor Henry Abraham, whose 1974 book entitled "Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court," which was plagiarized in Professor Tribe’s 1985 book entitled "God Save This Honorable Court," has given permission for the following statement by him to be posted here.

Prof Abraham, whom the Harvard Committee had interviewed on November 16, 2004, was not apprised by it of its April, 2005 report. He has not been willing to comment on the latter publicly, except to emphasize that he did not go public in 1984 when he became aware of the matter, although he now believes that he publicly should have done so; and, further, to observe that the committee’s categorization of Prof. Tribe’s actions as "inadvertent" or "unintentional" causes one to wonder how multiple instances of using someone else’s work can be appropriately classified as "inadvertent" or "unintentional." When The Weekly Standard’s exposé was published in early October 2004, Professor Tribe promptly and formally apologized to Professor Abraham, who accepted the apology.