A lesson in ethics; what would you do?

ballz2wallz · 07-25-2007, 09:54 AM

The Diane Archer Case

Professor Diane Archer is a tenured member of a biology department at a major Midwestern university. She has been in the department for 15 yrs, and during that time she has supervised the work of 20 Ph. D. students. As part of the mentoring process, she has worked closely with her students, teaching them the ropes of writing grant proposals and on occasion inviting students to assist her in reviewing NIH grant applications.

Professor Archer is currently in her last yr on an NIH study section. As she is reviewing a group of proposals, she comes upon one written by Charlie West, a former graduate student of one of her close departmental colleagues. Archer knows and remembers Charlie West because she had solicited his help two yrs earlier in reviewing a proposal closely related to West's own area of research. As she now reads West's proposal, Archer is impressed with the scientific soundness and find writing style in the Background section. She notes, however, the extremely terse and awkward phrasing in the Research Design and Methods.

Perplexed by this shift in style, Archer retrieves from her files the grant proposal West had reviewed with her two years earlier. She is dismayed to see that West has used verbatim virtually the entire Background section of the earlier proposal for his own current proposal.

Archer is torn. If she reports her discovery of West's plagiarism to the NIH, she knows she will have thrown this young scientist's otherwise promising scientific career into jeopardy. If, however, she says nothing, she will be shirking her responsibility to the NIH, as well as risking her own professional reputation, should the plagiarism be detected later.

She decides to contact West directly, and confront him with her finding. She plans to advise West that what he has done constitutes plagiarism and suggest to him that he withdraw the proposal. If West agrees, and withdraws the grant application, Archer feels she need take this incident no further.

Should Archer proceed with her plan to contact West? Why or why not?

I think this will be a fun debate on what Archer should do. We had an interesting talk about this yesterday in a class and I'm curious to see how others would take it.

I realize that not everyone knows the rules and regulations in this field, so feel free to ask questions. I will answer them as we go, or add information relevant to any posts to clarify the situations.

It might be best to start addressing such issues:

1) Issues and points of conflict

2) Interested parties

3) Consequences of action or inaction

4) Obligations of parties involved

Go!

Linzyhop · 07-25-2007, 10:20 AM

contacting West is exactly what I would have done. it gives him the opportunity to do the right thing without making Archer be the one to call him out publicly.

ballz2wallz · 07-25-2007, 10:23 AM

Originally Posted by Linzyhop

contacting West is exactly what I would have done. it gives him the opportunity to do the right thing without making Archer be the one to call him out publicly.

Good point, and that's what I first would have said, until I realized that it is against the rules of the NIH for a reviewer to let anyone know who and what she is reviewing. She would be breaking the rules in doing so, and would again be 'shirking her responsibility to the NIH'.

Linzyhop · 07-25-2007, 10:26 AM

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Good point, and that's what I first would have said, until I realized that it is against the rules of the NIH for a reviewer to let anyone know who and what she is reviewing. She would be breaking the rules in doing so, and would again be 'shirking her responsibility to the NIH'.

i am not a reviewer and am not familiar with the "rules" but I would still go this route. or at contact him anonymously and tell him that.....

ballz2wallz · 07-25-2007, 10:33 AM

Originally Posted by Linzyhop

i am not a reviewer and am not familiar with the "rules"

I know that's why I said I would add things here and there when relevant.

but I would still go this route. or at contact him anonymously and tell him that.....

Also realize that plagiarism is something that ALL of us are taught not to do from a very young age. If he still did it, despite knowing that he shouldn't, does that mean he'll do it again? If Archer was in a position to stop someone from taking the tax-payers' dollars for plagiarized material, is it her obligation to do so, knowing that she may be the only one to ever catch it?

Simius · 07-25-2007, 02:25 PM

She has to report it. It is a conflict of interest to favor him by breaking the rules and letting him change his plagiarism. It isn't like he didn't know he was plagiarizing when he wrote it.

I'm not even sure she should be reviewing it in the first place... considering she knows the scientist. I'd think someone else should have received the proposal to review/she should have given it to someone else to review when she realized she knew him.

(I dunno what the actual rules are about that... but ethically I don't think she should have looked at the proposal to start with. Now that she has she ethically needs to report the plagiarism.)

ballz2wallz · 07-25-2007, 02:31 PM

Originally Posted by Simius

I'm not even sure she should be reviewing it in the first place... considering she knows the scientist. I'd think someone else should have received the proposal to review/she should have given it to someone else to review when she realized she knew him.

(I dunno what the actual rules are about that... but ethically I don't think she should have looked at the proposal to start with. Now that she has she ethically needs to report the plagiarism.)

VERY good points. There may be a conflict of interest given that she knows the guy so well. That's certainly a valid point.

Also, she may have been in the wrong for originally seeking his advice on a proposal two years ago. While she may have gotten permission from the NIH to seek outside advice while reviewing a grant (it is allowed in the rules), it doesn't specify that she did so.

Also, the fact that they both had copies of grant proposal under review is against the rules. They are both supposed to immediately shread said proposals.

Simius · 07-25-2007, 02:37 PM

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

VERY good points. There may be a conflict of interest given that she knows the guy so well. That's certainly a valid point.

Also, she may have been in the wrong for originally seeking his advice on a proposal two years ago. While she may have gotten permission from the NIH to seek outside advice while reviewing a grant (it is allowed in the rules), it doesn't specify that she did so.

Also, the fact that they both had copies of grant proposal under review is against the rules. They are both supposed to immediately shread said proposals.

Oh snap. It sounds like doing the right thing (which will cover her ass) will actually land her in a load of trouble. Ethically she should still report it and hope she doesn't get too much blow back... But considering all that you've said, I'd imagine she'd let it slide and pretend she didn't notice.

Of course, usually you get into much more trouble trying to cover things up than whatever trouble you would have gotten into if you come clean when you realize there is a problem.

Overall, I think I'd still report it.

Edit: I might destroy my copy of the old proposal and just report that this one seems very similar to a proposal I had reviewed earlier that West had helped me with. And request a copy of the old proposal so I could verify if West's proposal was in fact plagiarized. (assuming old proposals are kept somewhere.)

This is probably the only unethical thing I'd do in this situation.

ballz2wallz · 07-25-2007, 02:39 PM

Ah yes, this is where the ethical dilemma comes in! That's why this case is so fun to debate.

Also, the we should consider the fact that he plagiarized the background and not necessary the proposal itself...the proposal was still his own ideas. The background is often easier to plagiarize given that it's been written and rewritten many times over in the literature.

WickedLou9 · 07-25-2007, 05:42 PM

Well see, now she is in a predicament. The correct thing to do would have been to recuse herself because she knew personally the author and as such could not offer an unbiased review. However now that she has already taken one unethical action she is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If she had done the easier ethical thing up front, none of this would have happened. I think if she knows that he plagarized a part of his report she is duty bound to report it. She should ask herself if it was anyone else and she found plagarism what would she do? If it was some random person whom she didn't know, would she hesitate to report it? If the answer is no, she must report it. It would be unfair to everyone else if she let this person go simply because she knew him.

ballz2wallz · 07-25-2007, 08:37 PM

All very interesting. I think it's reasonable to compare it to a situation with someone she didn't know...and if she would have turned someone else in, then certainly I agree that she should turn him in.

I think personally, what I would have done, is remove myself from the review of this particular proposal, claiming conflict of interest. At that point I would consider myself removed from the NIH rules of confidentiality as a reviewer, and I would approach West and tell him what's up, that he needs to withdraw his proposal, and realize he's totally screwing up by plagiarizing. If he refuses to withdraw the proposal, I would then turn him in.

But that's just me. I really like seeing what others think...