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Getting ahead the old-fashioned way: Plagiarism, theft, cut-and-paste
By Li Luxiang |
July 22, 2009, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
SOUTHWEST Jiaotong University announced recently that its vice president, Huang Qing, had committed plagiarism 10 years ago in his doctoral dissertation.
As a consequence, Huang will lose his doctoral degree and his position as supervisor to doctoral degree candidates.
But Huang is likely to continue to serve as vice president, for the time being.
The university says that it lacks authority to strip Huang of his administrative post, adding the decision should come from the Ministry of Education.
Plagiarism is not only an ethical issue for academics, but poses broader ethical problems as well.
Huang is tainted and no longer deserves to serve as a vice president.
But simple reasoning suggests that a person guilty of plagiarism can probably serve as an official competently.
This reminds me of a joke: a cadre recommends his relative for work in a secondary school, so he gets the job. The relative confesses to the principal that he actually is incapable of teaching anything. The principal replies, "OK, I guess you can only be the vice headmaster in school."
Though it is only a joke, the reality is that lots of officials without academic distinction or merit are quite agile in climbing the ladder of officialdom.
Some explain this fact in terms of special Chinese characteristics in appointing officials.
But Huang may not be worse than many other officials.
It is well known that lots of officials are now in possession of master's or even doctoral degrees, many of them obtained through connections, dishonesty, or money.
Compared with such officials, those who bother to go through the trouble of plagiarizing their way to their degrees seem to have won their credentials the hard way.
As a consequence, Huang will lose his doctoral degree and his position as supervisor to doctoral degree candidates.
But Huang is likely to continue to serve as vice president, for the time being.
The university says that it lacks authority to strip Huang of his administrative post, adding the decision should come from the Ministry of Education.
Plagiarism is not only an ethical issue for academics, but poses broader ethical problems as well.
Huang is tainted and no longer deserves to serve as a vice president.
But simple reasoning suggests that a person guilty of plagiarism can probably serve as an official competently.
This reminds me of a joke: a cadre recommends his relative for work in a secondary school, so he gets the job. The relative confesses to the principal that he actually is incapable of teaching anything. The principal replies, "OK, I guess you can only be the vice headmaster in school."
Though it is only a joke, the reality is that lots of officials without academic distinction or merit are quite agile in climbing the ladder of officialdom.
Some explain this fact in terms of special Chinese characteristics in appointing officials.
But Huang may not be worse than many other officials.
It is well known that lots of officials are now in possession of master's or even doctoral degrees, many of them obtained through connections, dishonesty, or money.
Compared with such officials, those who bother to go through the trouble of plagiarizing their way to their degrees seem to have won their credentials the hard way.
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