The Academic Creed
in Theory and Practice
"Education is not just another business; it is a calling"
Howard Gardner
Why Condemnation of Plagiarism is Softening
Postmodern theory contends that all texts owe their existence to earlier texts, so, by definition, there is no originality or plagiarism. Or, as Kernan puts, it "We are all plagiarists now" (193). Why has this sophistry been embraced by academics? It justifies and encourages the ruthless exploitation of already published texts, thus allowing academics to fatten their CVs by weaving other texts into their own with careless disregard for noting the source. A bit guilty about what they've done, perhaps, they at least refuse to play the hypocrite by hounding others who have done the same thing.
While there are no firm statistics about how prevalent plagiarism is, a couple of scholars in comparative education say that "academic fraud" now plagues education around the world. Surveying 2,000 faculty members and 2,000 doctoral students in departments of chemistry, civil engineering, microbiology, and sociology at major research universities, they found that eight percent of the faculty and seven percent of the students said they observed or had direct knowledge of plagiarism by faculty members in their own departments. Moreover, nearly one-third of the faculty members had first-hand knowledge of student plagiarism (Swazey, Louis, and Anderson A24).
According to another researcher, cheating, the falsification of credentials, and plagiarism have reached "epidemic proportions" throughout higher education (Desruisseaux). Cases where established scholars "appropriated" the material of their graduate students and research assistants (under the theory that professors own the ideas of their bright students and research assistants) suggest that the problem is more widespread than anyone dares to imagine. "Considering how many graduate students write excellent research papers, turn them in and never follow up on the subjects, one can only guess how many of those papers are being recycled without attribution..." (Wagner). There will be no appetite for establishing clear international standards for different degrees of plagiarism (and related offenses), as Michael Davis urges (107), as long as doing so would inhibit promoting one's career.
Our Dereliction of Duty
On every campus in the country students are given some sort of "Guide for Understanding Academic Integrity" that defines "plagiarism" and explains to them why academic integrity matters. In the future, if trends continue, that same brochure may have to be given to faculty members too. It is the duty of professors to guard and protect intellectual integrity: someone has to say how things are, without bias or cunning. If the professors on Dr. King's committee had done so responsibly, they would have served him far better than they did and prevented the scandal now swirling around his memory. They should be shunned and shamed, not the people who established and revealed the truth.
Our commitment to integrity, professional ethics, responsible scholarship, and freedom of thought cannot be contingent on our politics, self-interest or humanitarian sympathies. Society has accorded us unusual security and privilege because it expects in return the benefits from our objective criticism and truth-telling. If we cannot supply those things, we cannot claim any more moral authority than tel-evangelists or fight-promoters, and do not deserve, because we do not really use, the privileges and immunities that society has granted us.