Gallaudet University, Who is Mr. Benson Tong?

Who is Benson Tong? Why is Gallaudet University keeping quiet on him? Or are they?

This is breaking news, at least for me, in the December 2004 article by the History News Network on the “Investigation by the Chronicle of Higher Education: (part) 2 - Historians Accused of Plagiarism” where there seems to be a plagariasm brouhaha (or will be soon) on the campus of Gallaudet University. If you can't get to the link go here to the Google cache section.

Are you listening Buff and Blue? Or Buck Naked Bison? You got your work cut out for you right there on your idyllic green campus.

The authors, Bartlett and Smallwood, highlighted four cases that they came across in their investigation of “plagiarists you’ve never heard of.” Benson Tong is one of them discussed. What was surprising was that Gallaudet University never heard of Benson Tong's charge of plagiarism, the accused one levied by the Historical Association’s findings, until after they hired him. This is one big plagiarism brouhaha surprise we have here on the very campus of Gallaudet University according to the authors, Barlett and Smallwood. Could get quite interesting.

Now, who is Benson Tong? Well, to begin he was an assistant professor of history at Wichita State University. In his written anthology on Margaret Chung, the first U.S.-born female Chinese doctor, who was also the subject of Ms. Wu's 1998 dissertation, seemed to have copied nearly verbatim Ms. Wu’s dissertation of the same subject.

It all started when Judy Tzu-Chun Wu came across a newly published anthology on the American West in 2002. Ms. Wu, who was an assistant professor of history at Ohio State University at the time, had a great deal of interest in Margaret Chung. Ms. Wu wrote and taught about the American West while on campus. Her revelation about this other author, Mr. Tong, was soon to be discovered when she looked through his book to see how the this author felt about Margaret Chung. Ms. Wu was surprised to see such similarity to her own 1998 dissertation. So similar that according to Ms. Wu in one of the chapter (Tong, ch. 11: Margaret Chung and the Dilemma of Bicultural Identity) it was nothing more than a condensed version of Ms. Wu dissertation almost by pure verbatim.

Sounds like a plagiarist who got caught by the very author herself, Ms. Wu. But read the rest of the full article:

Ms. Wu went through Mr. Tong's chapter word by word. She highlighted in yellow those portions of the text that were borrowed directly or altered slightly. She highlighted in green those sections that were paraphrased versions of her arguments and research. When she was finished, only one paragraph of the 15-page essay had escaped the highlighter.

But the most damning evidence could be found in the footnotes. If Mr. Tong's list of sources was to be believed, he had gone to the same archives, reviewed the same unpublished manuscripts, oral histories, and newspaper articles as Ms. Wu and then chosen to quote identical passages from that material. "Almost all of the citations in Tong's essay exactly replicate the sources and page numbers that appear in my footnotes," Ms. Wu wrote in a complaint to the American Historical Association.

Despite the compelling evidence, some of her colleagues told her to forget the matter. Pursuing it could damage another scholar's career and would no doubt be a long, exhausting process.

Ms. Wu ignored their advice. She submitted a 21-page complaint to the association and wrote a letter to Scholarly Resources Inc., the publisher of Mr. Tong's book. Mr. Tong offered a rebuttal to Ms. Wu's charges, and Ms. Wu countered with a response of her own, again laying out the evidence against him. She describes the experience as "emotionally draining."

The process was difficult and tiresome, just as some of her colleagues had predicted. In the end, the historical association ruled in her favor, finding that Mr. Tong "appears to have borrowed most of his research and overall analytical framework from Ms. Wu's work without sufficiently indicating the extent of his indebtedness." The group concluded that Mr. Tong had indeed committed plagiarism. Not long after, the association stopped investigating plagiarism cases, saying it was not a good use of its resources.

As was the association's custom, it sent a letter to Ms. Wu and Mr. Tong informing them of its decision about Ms. Wu's complaint. There was no press release, no notice on the association's Web site. Today, more than a year afterward, the association won't even confirm that it conducted an investigation.

As a result, Ms. Wu felt it was her responsibility to publicize the findings. She had the chairman of her department fax the association's letter to the chairman of the history department at Wichita State.

That was particularly bad timing for Mr. Tong, who was coming up for tenure. He was turned down. After sticking around Wichita State for another year, he was hired by Gallaudet University (in August 2004).

When contacted recently at the university (Gallaudet), Mr. Tong asks the caller to hold on while he closes his office door. He contends that he "didn't make any mistakes" in the essay and says he refuted Ms. Wu's allegations. When asked if he was guilty of plagiarism, he responds, "No, I don't think so at all."

However, he declined to discuss any details, saying the matter had already been put to rest. When asked whether his new employer (Gallaudet University) was aware of the historical association's finding, he said: "I guess they know about it. The word does get around."

According to the article it goes pretty much hush, hush regarding plagiarisms committed by scholars. That's why the authors of the article are writing about this "hush hush" business on scholarly plagiarism. But words did get around, eventully, to the right, uh, ears of one of Gallaudet University's chairman.

Apparently word had not gotten around to the chairman of the government and history department at Gallaudet, Russell Olson

Upon being told that a newly hired member of his department had been found guilty of plagiarism, Mr. Olson groans. When asked if this came as a surprise, Mr. Olson answers, "Total." He went on to say he would "do something" but declined to be more specific.

He would do something? Is this going to be another “Ward Churchill” thing where Gallaudet University officials will pay Benson Tong some moolah so he can leave and not fear a lawsuit? We’ll see.

Except for acknowledging the receipt of her first letter, the publisher of Mr. Tong's book never responded to Ms. Wu's letters and e-mail messages. This year Scholarly Resources was acquired by Rowman & Littlefield. Kelly Rogers, the director of permissions at the publisher, was unaware of the plagiarism charge. "I would be the person who would know," she says.

As for Ms. Wu, she feels somewhat vindicated by the historical association's ruling. Still, she remains frustrated that Mr. Tong's book has never been retracted. "It's still out there," she says.

Her dissertation is scheduled to be published next year by the University of California Press. Ms. Wu worries that Mr. Tong might even be asked to review her book. After all, he's written on the same subject.

Ok. Here’s the old adage, you reap what you sow. Take full responsibility of your actions. When you plagiarize, you are stealing another person’s work. When you copy a famous painting and sell as your own painting, that’s stealing someone elses recognized but hard work. Not very smart, even coming from scholars which makes them very dumb professors.

However, Benson Tong left a pithy quote about research and writing seen in the Wichita State University’s newsletter (Vol 3, #1 Spring 2002):

“Students learn not only methods of research and writing that they can apply to other endeavors, but they also sharpen their social skills. They learn to meet deadlines, compromise with each other and appreciate the importance of tolerance of diverse opinions. And of course, they also expand their appreciation of the past.”

And yet he earned a spot in the annals of famous plagiarists? Is this fair? And he's famous, too? Well, maybe after this goes out he will be.

Anybody listening?

By the way, can Benson Tong sign? Go find him on campus and report back to me. Ask him about Ms. Wu with your flying fingers of yours. Or maybe contact him via Gallaudet University's email. And for Pete's sake, does anybody have a picture of him on campus? Is Benson Tong still there three months after the story broke out? Is Gallaudet University doing anything at all??