Court Backs Harvard in Plagiarism Challenge

Harvard University did not defame or breach a contract with a former law school student when it noted a plagiarism finding on her transcript, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. In its ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld a lower court decision dismissing a lawsuit by Megon Walker, who had alleged that the plagiarism finding should not have applied to a draft of a note she submitted to a student-run law journal. But Harvard Law School's plagiarism policy "refers to 'all work submitted,' a phrase that on its face applies to any student work for any academic or nonacademic exercise, whether in draft or final form, turned in to an instructor or student editor of an extracurricular law journal," the First Circuit wrote.