Michael lemoyne kennedy biography plagiarism

March 20, 2019RichardAmerican history, civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, plagiarism16 Comments

I am on record as stating that Dr. Martin Luther King is not the only hero of the civil rights movement. King did not do it by himself—indeed, the process began long before he was born—but he deserves a lot of credit. I admire and respect him for multiple reasons. A man of courage and vision, he was a true leader. I wish I had been among the 1,200 people present when he spoke at the University of Texas on March 9, 1962 (after the Montgomery bus boycott and before his showdown with Bull Connor in Birmingham), but I would not reach Austin until 1971.

Regardless of my high esteem for King, I know he was no angel. This is not because he was a world-class adulterer; such information comes largely from wiretaps conducted by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, for which Attorney General Robert Kennedy gave approval.  No, the issue is a bugaboo that has wrecked many an academic career: plagiarism.

King was unquestionably a smart guy, but he maintained just a C+ average during his undergraduate days at Morehouse College (a black institution). He was considered an academic underachiever in Atlanta. So it is curious that he immediately became an A- student when he went to Crozer Theological Seminary (a mostly white institution) in Pennsylvania to seek a divinity degree. It was more of the same at Boston University as he got top grades in pursuit of a Ph.D. He graduated from Crozer in 1951 and BU in 1955. Some critics/enemies have all but accused the latter two schools of pampering King, doing so out of white guilt and an early version of “affirmative action.” I am unconvinced, because the professors and administrators could not have known the young man was destined to be such a titanic figure in modern American history. In the early 1950s, he was just an earnest student, one with a promising future in the pulpit. So perhaps he earned all those A’s.

With the passage of 34 ye

Published in Tracey Bretag (editor), Handbook of Academic Integrity (Singapore: Springer, 2016), pp. 913-927
pdf of published chapter

Brian Martin

Abstract

Many academics and other professionals are implicated in plagiarism, misrepresentation, and exploitation, yet research about this is limited compared to the large body of research on student cheating. In what can be called competitive plagiarism, academics, judges, politicians, journalists and others use the words and ideas of others without adequate acknowledgement. Misrepresentation occurs when professionals inflate or manufacture their credentials and achievements in curricula vitae, job applications and media releases. Intellectual exploitation involves taking credit for the work of others in a routine fashion. Examples include ghostwriting and managers taking credit for the writings and ideas of subordinates. This sort of exploitation fits the normal definitions of plagiarism but this label is seldom applied; it can be called institutionalized plagiarism.

Understanding the persistence of intellectual exploitation can be understood by examining the tactics commonly used by plagiarisers to reduce outrage over their actions. These include cover-up, devaluation, reinterpretation, official channels, intimidation and rewards. Powerful plagiarisers have access to most or all of these techniques, whereas student plagiarisers usually can use only cover-up and reinterpretation. The existence of institutionalized plagiarism depends on a lack of questioning of exploitative systems.

Introduction

Most of the extensive research on plagiarism concerns students. Yet plagiarism can also occur after students graduate or obtain academic positions. There are numerous documented cases of plagiarism by established academics as well as by other professionals, many of whom have university degrees and are supposed t

CONCORD, Mass. — In early January, an anonymous letter arrived at the Washington, D.C., office of the Weekly Standard. It was addressed to Executive Editor Fred Barnes, who had written a piece suggesting that historian Stephen E. Ambrose’s book about World War II bombers contained some passages “barely distinguishable” from another author’s work.

The mystery correspondent opened with a salute, saying Barnes had been “quite right” to expose Ambrose, and then moved on to the main business of the missive--ratting out another celebrity historian: “I’ve long been concerned by several instances of plagiarism I noted long ago in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s ‘The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys.’ I believe she ought to be called to account, just as Professor Ambrose has.”

Passages from the Goodwin book and other Kennedy histories were set down for comparison, beginning with a three-sentence snippet that appeared to be borrowed from a biography of Kathleen Kennedy by Lynne McTaggart, a London-based writer. McTaggart, it would develop, had accused Goodwin long ago of “slavishly” copying her work, a complaint that led to a secret legal settlement.

*

... her closest friends [went the McTaggart passage] assumed she and Billy were ‘semiengaged.’ On the day of the party reports of a secret engagement were published in the Boston papers ... The truth was that the young couple had reached no such agreement.

... her closest friends [echoed the Goodwin text, published four years after McTaggart’s] assumed she and Billy were semi-engaged. On the day of the party, reports of a secret engagement were published in the Boston papers ... The truth was that the young couple had reached no such agreement.

*

Four more examples from other books followed. Titles, publishers and page numbers were noted, providing Barnes--or, as it turned out, a Weekly Standard research assistant--with a ready-mix case to whip up against the Puli