The Christian Sentinel
June 2003 issue
Update on the Richard Abanes and Winston Frost Plagiarism Allegations
By
William Alnor
ã
2003 Christian Sentinel
(Posted June 2, 2003)
| In our
April 2003 Christian Sentinel E-update,
we exposed some current plagiarism cases
within the religious media, including the
fact that prominent evangelical author
Richard Abanes had plagiarized researcher
Kurt Van Gorden in Abanes' 1998 book, Cults,
New Religious Movements, and your Family.
There have been some new developments in
this case that went to Christian
arbitration, including the following: -- The Los Angeles Times began looking into allegations that Abanes may have plagiarized from its series on the Church of Scientology. -- Abanes apparently began spreading rumors that Christian Sentinel publisher Bill Alnor did not give him a chance to respond to the plagiarism allegations. But when Alnor placed on a apologetics discussion board his actual correspondence showing this NOT to be true, Abanes threatened Alnor with legal action -- which Alnor ignored. -- Meanwhile, one of Abanes' friends began a harassment campaign against both Alnor and plagiarism victim Van Gorden that was unfounded and shockingly childish. This "friend," whose name we are leaving private, also attempted to harass Alnor by going to the Ph.D. program director at Temple University in Philadelphia (where Alnor is a Ph.D. candidate writing a dissertation on plagiarism in the religious media) and made ridiculous allegations that Alnor, in asking for the public's help in tracking more cases of plagiarism, was not doing his own research! Trouble is, his approved dissertation proposal clearly stated that would be the case -- that he would be soliciting tips from the public and even putting his research results on line, including placing an appeal for more help on line. Many tips have come in to Alnor, and he is checking out numerous additional reports of plagiarism in the religious media. Additionally, the university's Institutional Review Board certified Alnor's survey and research protocol application packets that indicated the same. This same friend of Abanes also demanded that Alnor remove his plagiarism project materials from his private web site and he demanded that Alnor shut down a "committee" (that was never formed) that was to look into other alleged instances of Abanes' plagiarism. Abanes' "friend" claimed that he was trying to salvage Alnor's dissertation! "Is this a joke?" Alnor asked the man in an e-mail post. Both the Temple Ph.D. director and Alnor's Ph.D. committee found nothing to Abanes' friend's allegations. They were simply manufactured on Fantasy Island, and not on the facts. Moreover, this "friend" claimed that Alnor's citation of Thomas Mallon's book, Stolen Words: Forays into the Origins of Ravages of Plagiarism (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1989), was not accurate in that Mallon never reported that "the plagiarist almost always does it again, and again, and again." The man even claimed it was not accurate before more than 80 subscribers to an Internet discussion board post. However, Thomas Mallon of Connecticut, one of the world's foremost experts in plagiarism, wrote Alnor an E-mail post that affirmed the accuracy of Alnor's characterization. What did Abanes' friend do? He did not believe Mallon, and even attempted to contact Mallon seeking to change his mind on what he wrote to Alnor! (Mallon did not want to discuss it further with the man.) Should anyone like to see Mallon's post to Alnor, please contact Bill privately. All this illustrates, of course, what Alnor had discovered in researching plagiarism. That there are often friends of the accused who will attack the victims of plagiarism while attempting to protect their friends. One other note: Abanes' friend, a man with no professional news/editorial experience or training, had also placed pressure on Alnor NOT to expose the Abanes plagiarism allegations in the first place! He claimed, again after having never worked for a newspaper and without having any training in journalism, that there was "not enough" there for a story. He did not answer Alnor's question to him how much there had to be in order to expose a case of clear plagiarism. After the story broke, this man also claimed publicly that Kurt Van Gorden was attempting to extract money from Abanes, which was not the case, and the falsity of this slanderous allegation has been decisively dealt with by Van Gorden. Write Bill for details. Yet, Abanes' friend repeated this allegation, even after he apologized to Van Gorden for making the charge! The bottom line was that this Abanes "friend" never repented for any of his actions, and so Alnor cut off all communication with him and removed him from his e-mail list and put a block on his e-mail address. At the same time, Abanes got on a discussion board and charged, among other things, that Van Gorden "rigged" the plagiarism tables he presented (and published in The Christian Sentinel E-update) in his accompanying story. However, this is simply not true. We are accusing Abanes of lying and we plan on reproducing the actual pages of the two books on line to show how Abanes appropriated the exact sentences and phrases without attribution from Van Gorden's writings in The Kingdom of the Cults, and he inserted them in Cults, New Religious Movements, and your Family. This occurred in seven different instances with a word count of nearly 100 words! In the other story, the one involving Winston Frost, Frost called Alnor and immediately took down the pilfered frequently asked questions that was allegedly taken from another law school's web site. He did not say who took the materials for use on his school's web site. He also claimed that he had a right to take portions of the Trinity Law School's catalogue for his own website since he was among the original authors. However, the law school's catalogue is copyrighted. Frost has other criticisms, which were noted in a April 9 letter to Alnor. Here they are: "Might I suggest you make the following changes to your summary of what occurred: Could we just say in the first column, `The former Dean, of the Trinity Law School and evangelical law school in Southern California. He resigned following plagiarism allegations. He went on to start his own law school, Desert College of Law in Palm Springs, California, where he serves as President and Dean. "In the second column, I would suggest you removed the language after Shestack and replace it with, `He was accused, according to the August 20, 2001 Christianity Today article of "using large word-by-word sections out of an encyclopedia for his article, `The Development of Human Rights Discourse: A History of the Human Rights Movement.'" The article goes on to note that other allegations surfaced, including `a 1983 paper by legal scholar Jerome J. Shestack. Dean Frost admitted to sloppy footnoting.` We are responding by placing links in the original stories to this article so readers can follow Frost's line of thinking concerning plagiarism and the sequence of events that led to his leaving the Trinity Law School. Per you request write or e-mail Bill Alnor at the Christian Sentinel and we will mail you Frost's additional two-page point of view concerning his departure.)
|
