Add new comment

Dear Jerry: With all due respect, the claims about Kagan and the law professors seem like quite a smear to me. As Dean of Harvard Law School, she appointed a committee to investigate allegations of plagiarism by Professors Ogletree and Tribe, which was the appropriate procedure for such an investigation of academic conduct. The investigation of Professor Ogletree revealed that a passage of a book he published contained unattributed material that was prepared by law clerks, to whom he had delegated research and writing. I don't think any objective reader could reasonably find that Professor Ogletree intentionally plagiarized a colleague, but he did apparently trust that his research and writing staff would not engage in plagiarism. The idea that Kagan should be disqualified from serving on the Supreme Court because student researchers for a book she did not write or publish or have anything to with failed to document their sources is a bridge too far. As for Professor Tribe, it reads to me that the committee was critical of his failure to cite material 25 years ago in a book that was not the kind that involved footnoting but that should have used quotation marks for the material at issue from another book he credited in that book. That is to say, the Committee took issue with his actions a quarter century ago but did not fire him. To suggest that Kagan engaged in any disqualifying conduct here by not overturning the recommendation and criticism of the committee investigating the allegations against Professor Tribe is really stretching it. These claims are pretty slender reeds to suggest that she herself would not properly cite referenced material if she were confirmed. There is no allegation in these claims that she engaged in any plagiarism herself. I think this sort of re-hashing of someone else's conduct and trying to pin it on her is real reach. Should she have reprimanded them further? It seems they were humiliated by the investigation she authorized, whereas if she were like President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales, she never would have allowed an investigation into any claims of misconduct of key personnel who worked for her, as they blocked efforts to appoint an independent counsel to investigate claims of warrantless wiretapping and torture, far more serious matters. Instead, she approved an investigation and there were no apparent grounds for her to overturn the results of that investigation. To suggest a character flaw on her part for all this is really too much. Lisa Graves