Academic Plagarism Update

The dispute pitting NIU anthropology professor Winifred Creamer and her husband, Jonathan Haas, curator of the Chicago Field Museum, against their former colleague, Ruth Shady of the Museum of Archaeology in Lima, Peru, continues unabated.

Shady alleges Creamer and Haas took credit for discovering the oldest civilization in the Americas. She also alleges her team made those discoveries when they began studying in Caral in 1994, according to a Jan. 5 written statement....

Shady also alleges Creamer and Haas claimed to have discovered certain sites, but Creamer said she credited Shady as the lead author; a very big deal in the scholarly world, she said.

This attribution conflict is a real mess and is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. Not only personal differences, but scholarly reputations, institutional integrity, and national pride are involved. Officials at NIU say they are looking into the matter, but that will not settle things. This case is headed for the Peruvian courts.

Read about it here.