Hi Kathy,
One thing that struck me strange here is "magna cum laude undergraduate double major from the University of Texas" - Why doesn't she know how to write papers? Why is a C suddenly okay? Cum Laude is a 3.5 grade point average - the next levels are summa and then magna ( i think in that order) - to get those kinds of grades you need to be a mostly A student. So something here does not have the ring of truth to it. I think you must maintain a B average in grad school - I have to. While a C in something you really suck at but must take is understandable - but I gather this was maybe more than one C? Maybe she is trying to take to many courses at once? One wonders what her double majors where? Law is much more difficult than many other majors. Mostly I am wondering at the level of work allowed at the University of Texas - if her papers are now not proper? If admits the errors - why didn't she correct them? Why know something is wrong and still do it?
Trisha
-----Original Message-----
From: Kathy [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 9:16 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Woman with CP kicked out of Boston University law school on
plagiarism charges (fwd)
I know I will probably raise some hackles but I can't understand what is so
difficult in crediting proper sources even if you're severely disabled. It
seems to me it is a matter of making sure everything is properly cited and
footnoted.
I know if I'd got an C-plus average, I'd be talking with my professors to find
out why my grade average was so low. Most graduate programs consider that to
be a low pass, at best.
Kat
On Wednesday 01 September 2004 8:51 pm, Gary Peterson wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> An E-bud of mine sent me this and I thought you might want to check it
> out.
>
> Later!-Gary
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:43:43 -0400
>
>
> Woman: BU trumped up plagiarism
> By David Weber
> Monday, August 30, 2004
>
> A 26-year-old woman disabled with cerebral palsy claims Boston University
> dashed her dreams of becoming a lawyer by trumping up charges of plagiarism
> against her and booting her out of law school six days before graduation.
>
> Layla Kiani, a magna cum laude undergraduate double major from the
> University of Texas, had all but completed her three years of law study at
> BU when two professors leveled the plagiarism charges against her in May
> 2003. She has filed a lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court against the school.
>
> ``This all happened more than a year ago, but I am still in shock
> every day,'' Kiani said.
>
> Kiani, who moves about in a wheelchair and whose reduced motor skills
> limit her physical ability to write, admits she committed errors in
> footnoting and attribution in four of her papers. But she said she never
> intended to sneak anything by her instructors.
>
> Kiani said she believed BU had deemed her methods on the papers to be
> sound because they had passed muster previously.
>
> ``If you turn in a paper and get a grade (C-minus) on it, you would
> think you are OK,'' she said.
>
> After the initial plagiarism charge was made in May 2003, Kiani said,
> another professor notified the school that he too believed Kiani had
> plagiarized in a paper from the prior year.
>
> Kiani, who claims misprescribed anti-anxiety medication caused her to
> experience chronic drowsiness that affected her grades, said she felt a
> ``false sense of security'' when she submitted her first troubled paper
> without incident one year before the plagiarism charges.
>
> BU associate general counsel Lawrence Elswit defends the school's
> decision to cut Kiani loose after her grades were lowered because the
> plagiarism charges caused her average to drop below 2.0.
>
> ``Without getting into too much detail, the evidence of plagiarism
> was indisputable and overwhelming,'' Elswit said.
>
> Kiani's lawyer, Ben Tahriri, said, ``You have a colossal institution
> going against diminutive woman who's gone through 10,000 hoops to get where
> she is today.'
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