Did Gorsuch Plagiarize?
White House Denies
Judge Neil Gorsuch appears to have copied portions of another author’s work in several paragraphs of his 2006 book opposing assisted suicide.Â
Buzzfeed’s Chris Geidner was the first to report that a “short section in Judge Neil Gorsuch’s 2006 book appears to copy — at times word-for-word — from a 1984 law review article by a lawyer in Indiana. Other sections of his book that were reviewed by BuzzFeed News contain additional apparent attribution errors.”
Politico’s John Bresnahan and Burgess Everett offer a stronger critique:
Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch copied the structure and language used by several authors and failed to cite source material in his book and an academic article, according to documents provided to POLITICO.
The documents show that several passages from the tenth chapter of his 2006 book, “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia,†read nearly verbatim to a 1984 article in the Indiana Law Journal. In several other instances in that book and an academic article published in 2000, Gorsuch borrowed from the ideas, quotes and structures of scholarly and legal works without citing them.
The White House is denying this is plagiarism.
“This false attack has been strongly refuted by highly-regarded academic experts, including those who reviewed, professionally examined, and edited Judge Gorsuch’s scholarly writings, and even the author of the main piece cited in the false attack,†White House spokesman Steven Cheung told Politico. “There is only one explanation for this baseless, last-second smear of Judge Gorsuch: those desperate to justify the unprecedented filibuster of a well-qualified and mainstream nominee to the Supreme Court.â€
Is it plagiarism?
A few responses via Twitter:
Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a Senior Fellow in foreign policy at Brookings Institution:
plagiarisms? this must be a first for SC confirmation: Gorsuch’s writings borrow from other authors https://t.co/x4wOdUBQ08
— Vali Nasr (@vali_nasr) April 5, 2017
University of Tennessee Associate Professor of Law and Director of Legal Writing:
I’m a law professor. I would fail a student who did this. Gorsuch’s writings borrow from other authors https://t.co/V4l3hov9qi
— Michael Higdon (@MichaelJHigdon) April 5, 2017
Harvard Law School lecturer:
I mean… this is not a close call. If one of my students did this, I’d be required to report them. #Gorsuch pic.twitter.com/W4epSwqCGZ
— Ian Samuel 🌹 (@isamuel) April 5, 2017
Former Attorney General Eric Holder’s former spokesman:
So we’re just all going to pretend that this Gorsuch plagiarism thing didn’t happen?
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) April 5, 2017
Associate professor of journalism at Northeastern University:
Gorsuch’s, uh, borrowing seems problematic enough to put off the vote. https://t.co/M30caenOVv
— Dan Kennedy (@dankennedy_nu) April 5, 2017
A contributing editor to Politico Magazine:
Plagiarism really should be the end of a Supreme Court nomination https://t.co/V51VhMZxIf
— Bill Scher (@billscher) April 5, 2017
Talking Points Memo Editor and Publisher offers a humorous response:
Premise of Gorsuch nom was he would copy Scalia’s writing, jurisprudence under his own signature. So not sure this is new development.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 5, 2017
Philosophy graduate student at CUNY:
This is hilarious. The defense of this asshole was that he’s “qualified,” and he turns out to be a plagiarist. https://t.co/7yyls366i2
— David Nagy (@davidanagy3) April 5, 2017
Director of the UNiversity of Florida Center for Latin American Studies:
Gorsuch’s writings plagiarize other authors – my students would get reported to student judicial affairs for this https://t.co/RxYSOUm2CM
— Philip Williams (@pjwilliams59) April 5, 2017
Apparently ‘originalism’ is copying the original text and pretending it’s yours. https://t.co/KLeYJNha8Z
— Pitt Griffin (@pittgriffin) April 5, 2017
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