Academic Dishonesty: Newman vs. Burgin

1. Case Summary:

The Newman vs. Burgin is about a tenured professor who advanced claims against university workers, claiming that they had violated the procedural due process in addressing academic misconduct. The defendant argues that after a considerable inquest and deliberation, it censured the professor for 5 years and also barred her from serving on any board. On the other hand, the plaintiff filed a law suit claiming that the defendant which is the university did not act in tandem with the due process (Farlex. 2008). She cited that the university denied her constitutionally safeguarded freedom. On the contrary, it appears like at every step of the proceedings, the University presented the plaintiff with the prospects to present her position, alter her decisions for any bias, allowed her to name witnesses and also critic the accusations again her. The plaintiff had also been afforded the opportunity to scrutinize recommendations and disparage their validity. In short, dues process was followed. However, the plaintiff posits that the Dean’s failure to submit a copy of her retraction to external professionals was rather unfair. But still, one would argue that experts would not alter their position either, just as it was nearly impossible for the university to take a different view based on the facts at hand (Farlex. 2008). The court was equivocal during an appeal; it affirmed and reversed its stance at the same time. At this moment, the university workers were granted legal protection to reward their efforts in carrying out the plagiarism inquiry and censure process. Consequently, the professor failed to demonstrate to the court that the plaintiff had no legal basis to commence a suit again him. However, Burgin, one of the defendant’s, was refused immunity on allegations of economic sabotage, and untold stress and defamation caused to the plaintiff.

2. Literature Review and Case Update on Academic Dishonesty

In this case, Newman published an article on “Suze sina razmetnoga,” a seventh century poem. Burgin, a professor in the same university department got suspicious, citing that Newman could have copied parts of the book and notified the personnel committee of the department. The committee’s findings were based on the similarities between Newman’s work and the book, demonstrating that she was guilty of academic dishonesty after conducting further investigations. Newman stated that the similarity level could not be considered as plagiarism since the passages were simply a depiction of general knowledge. Furthermore, she hinted that the similarity level comprised of lines paraphrased from Croatian poetry, an aspect that refutes that claim of plagiarism. Again, Newman’s article was written based on content from her Master’s dissertation that was supervised and approved by a renowned academician (Gesaman, 2009).

3. Ethical Issues- identify ethical issues from your case

Plagiarism is unethical. The fact that the plaintiff copied passages from the Croatian poet and Vsevolod Setschkareff’s 1952 book shows that she committed academic misconduct. While the intentions cannot be treated as objective or outright plagiarism, her actions amount to intellectual theft, which violates not only the intellectual rights and copyright law, but also punishable before a court.

4. Legal Issues – identify legal issues from your case

The defendant’s actions violated the plaintiff’s right to substantive due process, freeing her from whimsical and indiscriminate decisions influenced by the status of her job. The plaintiff may use the decision of First Circuit claiming that the fail to renew an educator’s contract is not only capricious but also arbitrary in violating the Fourteenth Amendment, since the action is not associated with education or “trivial”

5. Nursing Implications:

The nursing professional conduct requires that nurses guarantee the confidentiality of information entrusted by patients. In the same breadth, the law guarantees privacy to information and any violation in terms of leaking out information that could be vital and personal contravenes not just the law but attracts prosecution as well (Burnard & Chapman, 1993). In short, nurses are held accountable for their professional conduct.

What better practices could have been used by the University and or faculty?

The university could have ensured that the way in which investigations are carried out meets the provisions of procedural due process. Again the university could have submitted Newman’s refutation to external experts; because she had every entitlement to it, and due process would have been seen to have been done. Moreover, the institutions would still use that verdict to advance the case in a different direction.

References

Farlex. (2008). Right to privacy. The Free online Dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/right+to+privacy

Gesaman, K. (2009). Getting your day in court: Due process claims may succeed where first amendment fails. Informally published manuscript, Student Press Law Center, Arlington, VA. Retrieved from http://www.splc.org/news/report_detail.asp?id=1509&edition=49

Burnard, P. & Chapman, C. (1993). Professional and ethical issues in nursing: The code
of professional conduct. London: Scutari.

By admin in Essays on June 14, 2016