Earlham Libraries Home: Academic Integrity at Earlham: Case Studies

Diederik Stapel: Fraudulent Data

"The Lying Dutchman," (The Washington Post)
The article highlights the key aspects of the Stapel scandal when it first broke international headlines in November, 2011 based on an interim report issued by the universities where the psychology professor had studied and worked.
"The Mind of a Con Man," (New York Times Magazine)
An up close and personal interview with Diederik Stapel, a Dutch social psychologist, details his attraction to clear, orderly and simple results versus the messy data that his social psychology experiments actually offered. He began fabricating neat data for his experiments and his career took off with many publications, speaking engagements and graduate students, some of whom unknowingly based their own research on their professor's falsified data.
"Retraction Notice," (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)
When a researcher lands on this article published in 2007 with Stapel as one of three authors, they view a retraction notice indicating that the research was based on fabricated data but Stapel's two co-authors were not aware of and did not participate in the fraud.
"Diederik Stapel," (Retraction Watch)
Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus, two medical science journalists who maintain a watchdog blog site, "Retraction Watch," have chronicled the Stapel case and its 53 retractions that have occurred in international, peer-reviewed social psychology journals, 2011-2013.
"Stapel Investigation," (Joint Tilburg/Groningen/Amsterdam investigation of the publications by Mr. Stapel)
*Click the second link for the English version of the report.

A final, detailed investigation of Stapel's violations of academic integrity by three universities was published in late 2012 in an explicit pledge to "full disclosure" and with particular concern for the PhD students who had studied under Stapel and whose publications were now "worthless." The extensive report condemns a lack of accountability that extended well beyond Stapel to an entire academic culture of sloppy and unethical research practices that allowed Stapel to proceed undetected for such a long time.
"Stapel Gets Community Service for Fabricating Studies" (Science)
Stapel dodged prosecution by agreeing to 120 hours of community service and relinquishing Dutch welfare benefits for 18 months.

Cheating at Harvard, 2012

"At Harvard, Suspects in Cheating Take a Leave," (New York Times)
Approximately 125 Harvard students were investigated in a cheating scandal for the final exam in a course entitled, "Introduction to Congress" in spring, 2012. The university administration commented that it was Harvard's largest and most egregious case of cheating "in recent memory." While collaboration on the take-home, open-book final was prohibited, over half of the class proceeded to share lecture notes and course information with one another.
"Harvard details suspensions in massive cheating scandal," (Boston Globe)
Harvard administration outlines possible changes to support academic integrity going forward from the cheating scandal, including an honor code and instruction on "scholarly values" embedded in courses and academic programs.
"There Is No Harvard Cheating Scandal: the Students Should be Celebrated for Collaborating," (Washington Post Slate)
This opinion piece argues that collaboration among students should be encouraged and rewarded rather than denounced and penalized.
"Men's Basketball Co-Captain Kyle Casey To Withdraw, Miss 2012-13 Season; Curry Also Implicated," (Harvard Crimson)
Two of Harvard's leading basketball players choose to voluntarily withdraw for a year rather than face suspension from the university for their involvement in the cheating scandal.
"Studies Find More Students Cheating, With High Achievers No Exception," (New York Times)
Prominent cases of widespread cheating at institutions including Harvard and the Air Force Academy show that even the best students fail to choose academic integrity. The case for academic integrity is now being defined and promulgated at colleges and universities across the nation.

Jonah Lehrer: Fabrication, Self-Plagiarism and Plagiarism

August 12, 2012

Dear Members of the Class of 2016,

The new academic year is almost upon us, and we are looking forward to meeting all of you! We’re excited about your joining us for what I know will be one of the most significant periods of your life, and folks all around campus are in the final stages of planning for your arrival.

Planning does not always guarantee outcomes, however, and I want to share with you an illustration of this. As you know, we selected the book Imagine by acclaimed author Jonah Lehrer to be one of two books that we would ask you to read over the summer. We invited Mr. Lehrer to join us on campus during your first few days here to talk about the book. He is a great speaker, the book is on creativity and promised to be a good read, and we had every reason to think that this would be a great introduction to Earlham for you.

Yesterday we found out – and I imagine that many of you already know this – that Mr. Lehrer engaged in what are clearly some unethical practices in his writing of the book, specifically (at least) making up some quotations that he used in the book. This kind of behavior is absolutely unacceptable in the academic community for someone who is claiming to be doing non-fiction work, and because actions have consequences, we cannot sanction that kind of behavior by having him be a major speaker here. We have cancelled his appearance.

Terms such as “integrity” and “respect” are important here at Earlham, and you will hear much more about our Principles and Practices code after you arrive here and in your Earlham Seminars. As one of our faculty noted to me about Lehrer’s actions, “There are lots of integrity issues here: not just the original dishonesty, but also the ‘coming clean’ about the dishonesty, the integrity of his work, and the integrity of Earlham’s response.”

I am very pleased that we are replacing Mr. Lehrer in our Convocation on August 21 with someone who will help us shape a conversation about creativity with a presentation titled "The Ethics of Creativity, Or: How To Avoid (Greek) Tragedy". David Ebenbach is the author of two books of short stories — Between Camelots, and Into the Wilderness — a non-fiction guide to the creative process called The Artist’s Torah (forthcoming), and Autogeography, a chapbook of poetry. He has been awarded several prizes and fellowships for his work. He has a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. A former visiting professor at Earlham College, Ebenbach now teaches at Georgetown University. You can learn more about him at www.davidebenbach.com.

I look forward to meeting you in a few weeks.

Sincerely,

Greg Mahler

Academic Dean

"On The Freewheelin' Fall Of Science Writer Jonah Lehrer," (Forbes)
A fellow journalist discusses how Jonah Lehrer, a noted author and speaker, apparently "threw it all away" including a job at *The New Yorker* by fabricating quotes and attributing them to Bob Dylan in a best-selling book that was abruptly pulled from the shelves.
"A Message for Jonah Lehrer," (Psychology Today)
A fellow author encourages Jonah Lehrer in this piece that he will give him a second chance, especially since Lehrer was so young when he succumbed to temptation in self-plagiarism and later in fabrication of quotes.
"What’s wrong with Jonah Lehrer plagiarizing himself (at least 13 times)," (Poynter)
The author of this article argues why Jonah Lehrer's extensive self-plagiarism was wrong--because Lehrer marketed himself as a thinker with continually fresh and innovative ideas, whereas in reality he was recycling his own ideas over and over.
"Jonah Lehrer Resigns from the New Yorker after Making up Dylan Quotes for his Book," (New York Times)
Publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt went to significant trouble and expense to pull Lehrer's book *Imagine* from bookstore shelves and to refund buyers in order to preserve public trust in their name and books after Lehrer's fraud was discovered.
"Jonah Lehrer’s Journalistic Misdeeds at Wired.com," (Washington Post Slate Group)
The author of this article explains Lehrer's "press-release plagiarism," i.e. lifting phrases from marketing materials in his field and incorporating them either directly or with slim revision into his own works as a way of advancing their appeal. More egregiously, Lehrer tumbled into full-blown plagiarism in instances documented here.
"Disgraced Journalist Jonah Lehrer Talks About His Misdeeds; Wants to Earn Trust," (Huffington Post)
Jonah Lehrer apologizes in a speech delivered to other journalists, but the fellow journalist who reports in this article compares the efforts to that of Lance Armstrong, where too little humility and too little honesty come too late.