On Sunday, Paul Elam, head cheese of A Voice for Men, proudly announced that his colleagues at the phony WhiteRibbon.org website were republishing a kind of shitty article on domestic violence by Tanveer Ahmed, a columnist for the Australian and a man Elam described as an “esteemed psychiatrist, author, [and] media regular.”
Wait, did I say he was a columnist for the Australian? Make that former columnist. The Guardian reports that the Australian has just fired Ahmed – for plagiarizing a chunk of the very article that Elam has just republished.
It’s the second time Ahmed has lost a media gig for plagiarism.
The plagiarism was first discovered by blogger Ketan Joshi, who wrote:
Out of curiosity, and following some of the social media commentary around Ahmed’s piece, I plugged his writing into a bunch of online plagiarism checkers, and, lo and behold, a portion of his article is either plagiarised from work he’s published well into the past, or ripped directly from another website.
In one of the many ironies of this case, the sentence that Ahmed plagiarised virtually word for word for his Australian piece was written by feminist and MRA bete noire Amanda Marcotte.
Here’s the sentence as it appeared in Ahmed’s article:
…it is critical that improving arrest and prosecution rates, establishing shelters and abuse hotlines, pushing for state provisions against stalking, and creating protections for immigrants all have the goal of getting victims out of abusive -relationships.
And here’s the original from an American Prospect article by Marcotte:
Improving arrest and prosecution rates, establishing shelters and abuse hotlines, pushing for state provisions against stalking, and creating protections for immigrants all have the goal of getting victims out of abusive relationships and into safe situations.
Ahmed — at least in the version of his piece up on WhiteRibbon.org — actually footnotes Marcotte’s piece, though he presents her words as his own, not as a quote. (Yep, fellas, that’s still plagiarism.) He also manages to misspell her last name.
In addition to this bit of plagiarism, Joshi uncovered a number of similar examples in other articles recently written by Ahmed, and some examples of his own writing that he had repurposed numerous times in different pieces.
Another irony? Ahmed is an “ambassador” for the real White Ribbon Australia, a genuine anti-domestic violence campaign, yet he’s allowing his piece to be republished on A Voice for Men’s WhiteRibbon.org website, a site that’s impersonating the real White Ribbon campaign in what seems like an obvious ploy to create confusion about the real organization.
In other words, he’s allowing Elam and his cronies to publish his plagiarised article on their fraudulent website.
This will do wonders for the credibility of all involved.
Not long ago, Elam removed posts by his former number two dude at AVFM, John Hembling, after it was pointed out that one of his posts was plagiarised. Will Elam or the AVFM staffers who ostensibly run WhiteRibbon.org remove Ahmed’s post as well?
H/T — @clementine_ford and @drspacejunk
In every academic setting where I have taught, reusing old work would be considered a breach of academic honesty codes, but would not be considered plagiarism. The reason it is a breach of academic code, but not plagiarism, is that it is the student’s own work, but it was work completed as a requirement for a different class. Reusing the exact same work means not completing a portion of the required work, or taking credit twice for one paper when other students have put in the time and effort to write two papers. However, this really does depend on how strict the professor wants to be and how much of the project is reused. I have no problem with students basing new work on their other ideas, particularly if we discuss and have an understanding that the project will have a new scope, argument, etc. I would not accept an essay that had been handed in for another class with only minor alterations.
“Men” and “Females.” I’ve seen that dog whistle before.
It really does depend on the professor. I had one prof who assigned shorter writing assignments (paragraph-length ones) with the idea that they could be recycled into essays, and others who banned that practice.
That did save my bacon when I waited until the last couple of days before an essay was due and had to write it while feverish with the dreaded swine flu my freshman year… in retrospect, I think the prof would have given me an extension.
To be a pedant, it’s officially ‘The Australian’….
And that Clementine Ford piece (linked above) is v.good..
For extra context – The Australian is the dark lord Murdoch’s flagship “respectable broadsheet”. Very right wing, not at all a fan of social progress.
My attitude when writing professionally is that drawing on earlier writing is acceptable if it hasn’t previously been published professionally – so for instance I have no ethical problem with reworking a blog post or comment up into part of a published piece.
On the other hand, once it’s been paid for, that piece legally becomes the property of the publisher and I’d have to ask permission in order to make further use of it even if the deal allows me to share the copyright.
Ahmed has now been suspended from his role as a White Ribbon Ambassador, incidentally. Yes, the real White Ribbon (it gets confusing, no?)
http://www.thevine.com.au/life/news/white-ribbons-got-some-explaining-to-do-20150217-294958/
Apologies, I did mean to return here and post a link to the new statement by White Ribbon’s CEO, Libby Davies, once it had been made.
Ms Davies’ message alludes to Dr Ahmed having advised White Ribbon that he would make a statement available on his own website, but I have not seen anything yet from him resembling one beyond a couple of tweets such as this one:
https://twitter.com/drtahmed/status/567463674646777858