Godot Takes a Bow

The first plagiarist whose wares the Cabinet displayed on its shelves, and the last one to have escaped all consequences for his actions, has at long last been caught out.  As of this week, Arizona State University's directory pages quietly list Professor Matthew Whitaker not as a Foundation Professor, nor even as a professor.  Instead, he is now that most thwarted of academic beasts, an associate professor.  The directory also, after some rapid back and forth, has revealed that a co-director will be appointed for the Center of the Study of Race and Democracy, which until now has been most assertively Professor Whitaker's sole domain. The Cabinet was at first tempted to use words such as "belated," and to ask wearily whether those who have been publicly accused of debased motives for pointing out Professor Whitaker's serial misconduct, will receive apologies. But there is no point to recriminations.  And make no mistake: this is a sharp and heavy blow.  For years, Professor Whitaker deflected all consequences for his misconduct onto the very people who sought to reveal it.  And then, at last, he no longer could.

Some do good, and some do well

Not the time for wit. No need for interpretation. The facts:

Dr. Matthew C. Whitaker has parlayed his standing as ASU Foundation Professor of History into a $268,800 no-bid contract -- with the possibility for a $96,000 extension -- with the City of Phoenix.

 Professor Whitaker will provide 448 hours of training in procedural justice, police legitimacy, and cultural competency, and an additional 448 hours of evaluation in those matters, to Phoenix' 2900 police officers.  He will do this between July of 2015 and April of 2016, through his consulting firm, while he continues to collect his salary as a full-time professor of history at Arizona State University (whose rules state that employees may do no more than 384 hours per year of outside work).

Professor Whitaker will "plan and execute" this training despite the fact that he does not even pretend to do research into procedural justice or police legitimacy training. He will do this despite the fact that he does pretend to do research into African-American history, a pretense that has been repeatedly  pulled aside: even his reluctant university deems his work to fall "below the standard of the profession," Dr. Whitaker himself admits that the books he has published with ABC-CLIO contain extensive plagiarism, and  the publisher of his most recent volume has issued a statement that the book would not be sold in its current form because of errors of attribution. The Press, it added, "maintains no inventory."  But there is more.

Lorem Ipsum

In its public-spirited way, the Cabinet would like to help ASU's Center for the Study of Race and Democracy spread the word of a visitor whom it is bringing to campus to help conduct a "community conversation."  Dr. Jeremy Levitt, late -- and briefly -- of the University of New Brunswick -- will engage in a "straightforward exchange of ideas and dialogue" that "will keep the spirit of honesty and healing alive."  In the spirit of honesty, shall we introduce him?

They Like Him, They Really Like Him

The Cabinet received quite a bit of mail today, most of it hot to the touch.  Hot with the indignation of ASU students and faculty reporting that the University has seen fit to bestow its 2015 "Pioneer Award" on Professor Matthew C. Whitaker.  The cheerful announcement that Professor Whitaker has been honored by the University for "long-term dedication to the quality of life of African Americans" did not, somehow, elicit cries of "Well done!" Instead, observers noted that since Professor Whitaker has publicly brought shame on the university three times within two years, and has repeatedly committed actions that would cause students to be penalized or even expelled, he should not be given an award.  The Cabinet was in a mellow mood, and initially thought, well, it's an award for public service; Professor Whitaker is part of the public; giving him the award does him a service; what's not to like?  On second thought, yeah.  It's appalling. And the Cabinet is additionally unsettled by the fact that even had Professor Whitaker not been a plagiarist, his long-term dedication to the quality of life of African Americans appears to consist of being an extremely well-paid professor of African-American history and the director of the Center for Race and Democracy at Arizona State University. Thus the University has given Matthew C. Whitaker an award for occupying the lucrative position the University has given him.  And when those disgusted by serial plagiarizing suggest the professor should be gently encouraged to put his talents to different use, the University can respond, "But he wins awards!  We ought to know, because we give them to him!"  Why, yes.  Perhaps next year, ASU will give Matthew Whitaker a special award for having won a lot of awards from ASU.  Or perhaps Arizona State, which prides itself on its commitment to sustainability, will give Professor Matthew C. Whitaker an award for having steadfastly declined to expand the footprint of human knowledge. APS, the power company who is the Center's corporate sponsor -- and on whose behalf Professor Whitaker continues to write articles deploring net metering, all without disclosing his financial relationship to the power company -- would surely approve: Arizona State University Reuse, Recycle, and Repurpose Award for Scholars.  That, Professor Whitaker does indeed deserve.

Yes, it is still possible to be shocked

Matthew C. Whitaker's plagiarism-riddled Peace Be Still has long since been discredited.  The book's publisher, the University of Nebraska Press, announced this:

"The University of Nebraska Press is in the process of incorporating revisions to Peace Be Still proposed by its author, Matthew Whitaker.  These changes will address the issues of paraphrasing and attribution that have come to light since the book's publication.  Nebraska currently has no inventory for this title, and future printings will reflect the author's revisions."

As a result, the paperback edition on Amazon shows this: Temporarily out of stock. 

Order now and we'll deliver when available.

Yet Professor Whitaker believes there is still money to be made from the repudiated edition, either to enrich himself, or to add to the corporate money flowing through his Center.  He just has to avoid the usual publishing and academic channels.  So this morning, he is selling the theoretically unavailable paperback of his book.  At a church. At a higher price than Amazon was.  Here is the astonishing announcement, which was removed from his ASU Center's Facebook immediately after the event took place:

Edit:  Wow, cool!  The image -- Professor Whitaker, his book, praise for self, date and time of sale -- was visible on the Cabinet's page for some time, despite having been wiped from Professor Whitaker and his Center's Facebook and twitter feeds.  But, now it's gone.  Trust us: it was spectacular.
Anyhow, the book, it appears, is good enough to be sold to members of the Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, but not to anyone else. Perhaps that's unfair.  Professor Whitaker is teaching in spring.  Who doesn't think he will order his students to purchase Peace Be Still  from his well-stocked larder?

University of Nebraska Press has enabled this situation by declaring the book flawed and out of stock, but declining to recall it. ASU has enabled this situation by continuing to credential the professor.  Will they as well as Professor Whitaker share in the spoils of today's sale?  Will they benefit when Professor Whitaker assigns the book in his spring class, as he surely will?  Or is there somewhere a limit?  

Godot Walks Into a Bar.....

It's been a startling week in the land of stolen words.  An interloper has burst snarling into the peaceful grounds, a rough beast named "Consequences."  Talk about an unexpected guest.

Questions from our Readers

Surprisingly, we have them.  Readers, we mean.  In its heart, the Cabinet suspects some of their questions are rhetorical, such as the ones that begin with the phrase, "What the...."  But we are going to take a moment to answer some of them to the best of our ability, anyway.  Judging from the startling number of visitors to the Cabinet, there is a fascination to the spectacle of a professor, a university press, and a university turning lead into gold -- or at least turning a grotesquely derivative text into a work of true scholarship -- through the sheer power of insistence.  Sure, they are invoking personal authority over empirical evidence, and sure they are chipping away at the fragile edifice of humanities scholarship every day they persist.  But they are saving themselves from having to admit error, and isn't that what academic scholarship is all about?
But enough of the Cabinet's questions. On to the readers'!

Many cabinets, like many scholarly books, are compendia of wonderful things.  The Cabinet of Plagiarism is quite the opposite.  It is a collection of scholarly books that make us ask, "Has Our Profession At Long Last No Shame?"  Do you have a book that has shocked you with its brazen lifting of the work of others? Contact this blog and if it is truly (un)worthy, we will find a place for it on our shelves. Our first display, with four shelves devoted to it, is Matthew C. Whitaker's Peace Be Still: Modern Black America from World War II to Barack Obama (Nebraska, 2014). He is a Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University and the Director of ASU's Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD).  His book, never reviewed and just published in January, won the  "Bayard Rustin Book Award," an honor created this very year by the CSRD's sister institution, the Tufts Center for the Study of Race and Democracy.  And now, you are ready to enter the Cabinet.

Kate Sheridan, 2012

Exhibit A -- Old School Theft

Nothing fancy here.  Here's one case in which Foundation Professor of History Matthew C. Whitaker's scholarly account of battles over affirmative action, is drawn virtually word for word from an online encyclopedia, and another in which his description of the actor Will Smith is lifted from an online entertainment site. (Peace Be Still  is priced at $70 hardcover, $35 paper.  The websites are free.)

Exhibit B -- The Classic Model

Here is a scholarly book about "modern Black America" whose section on Malcolm X is drawn, with a few word changes and an inadequate citation or two, from the online encyclopedia blackpast.org.  Jonathan Bailey, writing in PlagiarismToday.com, perfectly captures this kind of plagiarism.  Alas, his assumption is that people committing it are students, rather than Foundation Professors.  Here is Bailey's description of this kind of plagiarism -- which is both a crime and a blunder -- followed by some examples from Peace Be Still:

"Where some try to game the technology and tools that detect plagiarism, others try to game the very notion of plagiarism itself. The idea is very simple, many plagiarists feel that they can get away with plagiarism by not plagiarizing. However, rather than citing sources and using quotes correctly, it often means trying to find ways of providing grossly inadequate citation, such as ignoring quote marks and citing incorrect sources.Much of this stems from confusion about exactly what is and is not plagiarism. Many students, in particular, fall into this trap of doing something that they think is adequate to avoid a plagiarism allegation but, in reality, is an unethical shortcut. Often times though, it stems form a desire to gain all of the benefits of committing a plagiarism without risking the repercussions." 

http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2014/02/26/plagiarists-think-can-get-away/

Whitaker examples of this sort, selected from scores of candidates:

Exhibit C -- Repackaging of a Famous Textbook

Peace Be Still: A History of Modern Black America (Nebraska, 2014) is in significant ways simply a subset of the many editions of Hine, Hine, and Harrold's African American Odyssey  (Pearson/Prentice Hall, 5 editions).  Textbooks tend to be for the most part uncited, of course, and to describe similar events. But Peace Be Still in fact does cite  (Professor Whitaker assiduously cites to his own previous publications, for example), just not in a way that even hints at the extent of the book's dependence on African American Odyssey. And its overlap with African American Odyssey goes well beyond a shared need to discuss major events and people.  Professor Whitaker draws, sometimes for pages at a time, his analysis, statistics, primary source quotations, and organization from the earlier work, usually without any attribution at all.  He does not include in his bibliography the most recent editions that he stripmines. And even as Professor Whitaker declares his intention to focus innovatively on culture and the post-2000 era, he is  dependent  for those very subjects on Hine, Hine, and Harrold.  Dr. Darlene Clark Hine is included  in the acknowledgments as one person in long lists of scholars, and the other two authors of African American Odyssey, not at all.    On the shelves of the Cabinet, we can give you only the barest idea of the gloomy thrill reading these two books side by side provides.   Here are three examples with images provided strictly for educational purposes.  The rest, the old-fashioned way. 

Exhibit D -- Standards

The standards for originality and citation are quite clear.  Authors often suggest they should not apply.  Some insist their plagiarism was unintentional, although the American Historical Association clearly states that intention is not a requirement.  Sometimes authors imply they have received permission from other authors to violate plagiarism standards. But personal relationships don't change standards; that's what makes them "standards."   Other authors suggest  that pieces  published entirely under their names were in fact written by graduate students or paid workers. Although they were prepared to benefit from them, they should not be expected to take responsibility for them.   The moral and professional weakness of such a stance is we hope obvious.