Robert L. Zangrando’s Response to Stephen Oates
Oates objects to the Association's involvement in reviewing complaints of authors' misconduct, alleged or actual. He claims there is nothing in its 1889 charter from the Congress of the United States that would justify its investigation of plagiarism charges. Using quotation marks, Oates incorrectly renders the charter language to read"promote an interest in history." Actually, that charter established the AHA"for the promotion of historical studies, the collection and preservation of historical manuscripts, and for kindred purposes in the interest of American history, and of history in America." (See, for example,"Act of Incorporation," as printed in the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1972 [Washington, DC; Smithsonian Institution Press, 1973], p. ix.) No one in the 1880s could have foreseen all the professional questions that might arise over the intervening, almost six-score years. However, the promotion of history's best interests, tied as they are irrevocably to issues of honesty, integrity, and proper procedures, would almost mandate that the AHA attend to the problems of plagiarism when they arise. To default on this matter would seem sheer delinquency and leave victims of theft seriously unprotected and the rest of us largely unaware of abuses in works we might otherwise value. With questions raised long before the Oates case of 1990 surfaced, the AHA sought in all good faith to shoulder that task on behalf of parties aggrieved, parties accused, their publishers and employers, and the general profession.
Scrutiny in the best sense of that term is our surest guarantee for preserving the quality of our work and findings. We us multiple readers for a doctoral dissertation defense, outside readers for manuscripts submitted to journal editors and book publishers, and book reviews in scholarly journals to ensure that what we give the world is worthy of our best efforts and will earn us a well deserved trust in a free and open society. That, again, speaks to the need for an AHA response when a victim of plagiarism, a chance reader who spots misuse of sources, or any diligent practitioner wishes a review of possible abuses.
Unfortunately, Stephen Oates makes no allowances for such an independent assessment of questionable practices. His recurringly intemperate language depicts the AHA, instead, as a power-hungry abuser of authors' rights. He alleges"perfidy and an abuse of power" by AHA officials, claims they employ"star-chamber proceedings," terms them"ill-versed in such matters as due process and common sense, making a mess of things," men and women who"will run right over anyone who challenges them." This is not the language of negotiation and academic discourse likely to generate constructive conversations, fruitful debate, or helpful conclusions. How very different is Oates's agitated posture from that constructively exhibited this winter, for example, by Doris Kearns Goodwin:"How I Caused That Story," reprinted in History Matters! (newsletter of the National Council for History Education, Inc.), 14 (February 2002), 1 and 7.
According to Oates, no one critical of his work acted in good faith. Fed by accusers who simply"were out for publicity," the AHA rendered"an infamous ruling" against him. The author of a 1989 book on plagiarism is dismissed as having"his own agenda," although Oates never specifies what that might be. Having forced two of his critics to cease their computerized assessment of his publications, he proclaimed that theirs were"now discredited charges against three of my biographies. . . ." I find nothing in his current article that validates the word"discredited";"discontinued" (at his insistence) would seem a more accurate description of their efforts. Oates identifies an"historian who's made the destruction of my books his raison d'etre," and characterizes him as"the last accuser to join the pack" of detractors. Referring to a session on plagiarism at the January 1994 AHA annual meeting, Oates sees it as"making strange allies of the ambitious and the self-righteous. . . .Sitting together in the audience were [the] AHA attorney. . . and two of my earlier accusers . . . . They were all there together, accusers and adjudicators alike. . . ." By such logic, were the other sixty or so people (I among them) who attended that session also conspiring against his interests? What makes Oates imagine that lawyers, random scholars, and AHA officers have so little to occupy their time, attention, energy, and resources that they would mobilize this huge and protracted assault against him?
One wishes that Oates would act more prudently in making accusations, and, incidentally, more accurately in citing his sources. The very first paragraph of his essay-in-self-defense alludes to a"recent Saturday edition of the New York Times" in which an article about plagiarism and specifically about his case was" cruelly slanted in favor of my accusers and the American Historical Association's Star Chamber. . . ." We should wish to read this article that so offends Oates, but he gives no evidentiary citation. Similarly, a page later when discussing the Illinois symposium at which critics initially challenged his use of sources, he grandly assures us that"according to a historian who was present, the symposium organizers hoped that the charges would get into the New York Times the next morning. . . ." An unnamed historian affords us as readers no validating source for such an account.
Oates's piece gives one the impression that he would have no truck with any group of scholars or organization-AHA or otherwise-finding his methods wanting. He thinks it unacceptable that the AHA, since its initial"Statement on Plagiarism" of 1986, has amended and revised the wording. Of course, historians regularly employ revisions and updatings that take into account new circumstances and knowledge gained from experience and research. For the AHA to have remained stubbornly wedded for sixteen years to one definition of scholarly abuses would have been needlessly rigid and ineffectual. Oates tells us further that, since he was not a member of the Association, it had no"jurisdiction over me." Such an attitude would have foreclosed cooperation from the beginning. Seeming to contradict his assertion that the AHA acted arbitrarily, he nonetheless admits twice in his essay that the organization asked that he respond within ninety days to criticisms made of his work. This is hardly the request of a body predisposed against him in prejudicial fashion. And, when a lengthy AHA review deflected the initial charges of plagiarism against him but found that he had not adequately listed his sources, he disputed that judgment, as well.
Scholarship and productive relations among scholars are not best served by
a hostile atmosphere. I should like, therefore, to invoke my appeal of an earlier
day, when I proposed that both Oates and the AHA disconnect from their attorneys
(in the early 1990s, one side had raised the prospects of law suits and the
other had fretted over their likelihood) and sit down with others in our profession
to explore constructively the many aspects of plagiarism and the misuse of sources.
(See, Zangrando,"A Crying Need for Discourse," Journal of Information
Ethics, Special Issue: Plagiarism, Part I, 3 [Spring 1994], 65-69). If Oates
is as angry, nearly eleven and a half years after his case first surfaced, as
this 2002 essay suggests, he may be unwilling or unable to share in any such
discussion. Moreover, my suggestion is hardly the last word or an easy solution.
Still, I think it would set an admirable example for the graduate students we
educate to carry on the tasks to which historians have devoted their lives and
their honor, to paraphrase the Declaration of Independence.