General Discussion

It frustrated me to no end to spend hours upon hours tracking down citations, correcting citations, correcting quotes or paraphrasing passages that were too close to quotes, adding citations where there were none - for people getting paid far more than I was making (zippo as an editor of a University law review), all of whom should have known better. Had it been my choice, I would have sent them back unedited to the authors to correct them. But the decision to accept the articles for publication was made by the prior year's editors (who read, but did not cite check, the articles). That experience gives me a window into the dirty little world of academic publications that many looking only at the allegations against Gay don't have.

So what I am saying is that Harvard was looking for a reason to get rid of her; the plagiarism allegations are simply the justification. Having participated in the hiring of faculty and deans at a law school, I can tell you that none of the publications are submitted to the kind of scrutiny Gay's were. And my experience in editing articles for their peers tells me that if they had been reviewed, many would contain similar plagiarism.

Until all University/college presidents are subjected to the same level of scrutiny - and all who committed similar acts of plagiarism are asked to resign - it remains a justification to get rid of a politically inconvenient black female, not the reason she is leaving. And the fact that it looks like "rules for thee, not me" is only because no one is checking the other "mes."