Prof Declares Himself Victim of Plagiarism:

Sociology prof speaks out;
some scholars say
issue is driven by race

By Mara Gordon
October 11, 2005

As leading scholars across the country have chosen sides in a plagiarism scandal that has rocked the Penn Sociology department since summer, the three professors at the center of the storm had remained silent.

But yesterday, the would-be victim in this saga of alleged "conceptual plagiarism" took a stand.

Penn Sociology professor Elijah Anderson released a statement accusing one of his colleagues of under-citing his work in her new book.

For the first time, Anderson publicly said Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Choose Motherhood Over Marriage -- co-authored by Kathryn Edin, another Penn sociologist -- "owes a strong and almost entirely unacknowledged debt to" his previous books.

The controversy erupted last week when Sociology professor emeritus Harold Bershady sent an e-mail to the Penn Sociology department. In the Sept. 29 memo, Bershady said that Edin and her co-author Maria Kefalas -- a St. Joseph's University professor already accused of plagiarizing material in one of her previous books -- had stolen ideas from Anderson and neglected to acknowledge it.

Sociology Department Chairman Paul Allison released a statement last Wednesday announcing that the department stood by Edin's work.

Thirteen prominent sociology scholars also wrote a letter to The Daily Pennsylvanian that called Bershady's claims of undercitation "absurd."

Until yesterday, Anderson was unwilling to discuss Bershady's charges. But under pressure from an academic community that increasingly supported Edin, Anderson spoke out.

"I never imagined that I would be dismissed with such utter confidence by respected figures of the discipline I have devoted my scholarship and career to serving," Anderson wrote of the letter that backed Edin. "I find their letter unconvincing and disturbing."

Anderson wrote that Edin and Kefalas took credit for ideas he originally cultivated in several books he published in the 1990's.

"What standards for acknowledging the prior work of other scholars will [Edin's supporters] -- and the academy generally -- stand by?" Anderson wrote. "Would they or any reasonable academic tell their students that they need not footnote or acknowledge in these circumstances?"

Adding further fire to the debate, Kefalas already faced charges of plagiarism when she published Working-Class Heroes: Protecting Home, Community, and Nation in a Chicago Neighborhood in 2003.

Arnold Hirsch, a History professor at the University of New Orleans, discovered that Kefalas had used language similar to that in his 1983 book, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960.

To resolve the dispute, Kefalas published a list of corrections on her faculty Web site at St. Joseph's University. The list cites Hirsch's book more extensively.

As buzz over the recent controversy at Penn circulated throughout sociology departments across the country last week, discussion has turned towards race.

Several prominent black sociologists said the Penn Sociology department's support for Edin was an example of the work of a black professor -- like Anderson -- being ignored.

"There is a history, in the profession, of black scholars being marginalized," said Bryn Mawr sociology professor Robert Washington, who is familiar with both Promises I Can Keep and Anderson's books. "That marginalization typically meant that people ignored their work ... One possible perception of this [situation] is as an outgrowth of that history."

Anderson was the first black sociologist hired at Penn. As one of the country's preeminent black scholars, many said they see him as a role model for minority academics.

The undercitation in Promises I Can Keep "not only offends Professor Anderson, it is offensive to all fair and balanced scholars, particularly scholars that are members of minority groups," University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee sociologist Anthony Lemelle wrote in an e-mail interview. "Dr. Anderson [is] being relegated to the position of invisibility."