This week, our Forum section planned to include a column from Dor Cohen ’16, who for the past year has been a columnist for this section. We now have reason to believe that Cohen directly plagiarized several sections of the column he had planned for this week, and that the Justice has published plagiarism in at least four of Cohen’s past columns. As a result, Cohen is no longer a columnist for the Forum section.

In a majority of these instances, the plagiarized sections were not arguments or opinions put forward by opinion writers for other publications; instead, Cohen directly copied paragraphs of news articles that put forward information supporting his positions. In no way does this mitigate the damage. Even when summarizing news reports from other outlets, writers are expected to describe the relevant information in their own words. 

While the plagiarized sections we have uncovered thus far do not include any cases where each sentence, word for word, was taken exactly as written elsewhere, a majority of the alterations to the original sources came from Justice editors making revisions or suggestions throughout the editing process. These include minor additions or subtractions or phrasing alterations, which in no way make the paragraphs less than plagiarism. Cohen occasionally included the source of his information but did not state that the plagiarized sections were a direct quote. This does not change that these sections were plagiarized.

We are continuing to investigate Cohen’s past writing for plagiarism and have informed the University’s Office of Academic Integrity. We do not plan to file a Community Standards Report over this case. We have also contacted the Brandeis Hoot, which Cohen previously contributed to as well. 

Our preliminary investigation uncovered four instances of plagiarism over his two articles for that paper. Cohen also plagiarized in an article for The Hill, whom we have contacted. 

Plagiarism is one of the greatest sins in journalism. While the Justice always fact-checks the information in all parts of our paper before publication, this is the first instance in my time at the Justice in which we have dealt with stolen writing. Factual errors and blunders are a natural, if always embarrassing, part of the journalistic process, but stolen work is a separate type of unethical behavior. It is especially troublesome to journalism, which is a practice dedicated to the dissemination of truth. While the arguments and substance of each of these columns were original, that the writer presented other reporters’ words as his own is still a serious misrepresentation that the Justice does not tolerate.

Our opinion section’s editing process has not, in my time, specifically checked works for plagiarism. We hope to be able to trust our columnists and contributing writers that their words and ideas are their own. That will change in the coming years. Every article is already reviewed by at least four editors and five total readers besides the writer before publication, but we will redouble our efforts on this issue in particular. We hope to work with the Office of Academic Integrity to develop new systems with the aid of experts in this field.

As with any newspaper, our chief responsibilities and loyalties are to you, our readers. By not catching these plagiarized sections, we have failed the trust you put in us to be accurate and accountable. 

Apologies are insufficient: We can only hope to rebuild any lost trust through renewed editorial focus and commitment to authenticity. We are already working hard to generate new policies and editorial practices in response to this incident.

Before becoming the editor in chief of this newspaper, I served for a year and a half as its Forum section editor. This week marks the last week in the term of our current Forum editor, Jessica Goldstein ’17, and the first in that of our newest Forum editor, Amber Miles ’19. 

Amber Miles has already proven herself a more than capable editor who I am sure will bring the section to new heights. Preventing plagiarism will be a deep focus of hers during her time as Forum editor. 

The idea that any plagiarism may have occurred during my own time in that position is troubling to me, as I’m sure is also true of Jessica Goldstein. The only positive of this incident is that it represents an opportunity for us at the Justice to grow, learn and better perform our duties as the independent student newspaper of this campus.

— Max Moran, Editor in Chief