|
THE ETHICIST BY RANDY COHEN Pity for the Plagiarist 'A college student called last week to say his "friend" had visited my Web page, lifted something I wrote and turned it in as her own work. Suspicious, her professor plans to search the Web; if he finds the paper was plagiarized, he'll recommend expulsion. The student implored me to take that paper off my site, lest her "friend's" academic career, and possibly her life, be ruined. What do I do?'
When the penalty is severe enough, however, a wrongdoer's appeals for mercy are not entirely ludicrous. It would be hard not to relent, say, if the Taliban planned to topple a wall onto her. (Though if she survived, I believe she'd automatically ace the semester.) Expulsion from college is not such a case. Even if she receives the worst possible punishment -- by no means a certainty -- it's unlikely to wreck her life. A young woman with her low level of moral inhibition and high level of chutzpah should flourish in modern America. She might be lucky enough to one day find herself in a nice Federal minimum-security prison, where she can make professional connections that will set her up forever. Or perhaps she'll get a job at Cliffs Notes, giving a new generation of kids a legitimate way to crib their way through college. Even if your heart goes out to the young plagiarist, you're not at liberty to drop the charges, since you're not the victim of this crime. You can, however, call the professor and appeal for leniency. But destroying evidence is definitely the wrong way to go. If you don't believe me, check out a 1976 movie called "All the President's Men." I won't spoil it for you by giving away the ending.
To send Randy Cohen your own question about ethics, write to: ethicist@sideswipe.com or The Ethicist, The Sideswipe Magazine, 10 West 43d Street, New York, NY 10036.
Illustration by
PREVIOUS ARTICLE | NEXT ARTICLE
Copyright 1999 The Sideswipe Company |
roperly assigning credit is delicate business. If I sign Rembrandt's name to my work, it's forgery; if I sign my name to Rembrandt's work, it's plagiarism. There's just no pleasing some people. But what's astonishing here is not the expropriation; it's the request that you cover it up. Presumably, if this woman had stolen your stereo, she'd ask you for a lift to her fence.