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The rules on plagiarism, (with full credit to MLK)

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The recent charges of plagiarism against both Democratic 
presidential candidates demonstrate that there are no ground 
rules about plagiarism in public speaking.

Politicians are not professional academics, and the strict 
plagiarism rules that apply to professors do not make sense when 
they're applied to orators. By the standards employed by some 
campaigns and commentators, not only would Barack Obama and 
Hillary Clinton be guilty of plagiarism, but so would Martin 
Luther King, Jr.

Many of Dr. King's speeches and sermons, including "I Have A 
Dream," were heavily dependent on others' work. Yet no one 
seriously accuses King of plagiarism in "I Have A Dream." With 
King's example in mind, I propose the following three rules for 
evaluating charges of oratorical plagiarism:

• Rule No. 1: If it's transformative, it's not plagiarism. 
King's "Let freedom ring" run at the end of "I Have A Dream" was 
based on a 1952 speech by Archibald Carey, a Chicago preacher 
and political activist. Carey, like King, recited the lyrics of 
America with an image of great bells of freedom pealing from 
every state in the nation. But the similarity does not mean King 
plagiarized. King added the repeated phrase "Let freedom ring," 
giving the material a call-and-response feel, and he changed 
Carey's imagery to add assonance and rhythm. (For example, 
Carey's "the Green Mountains and the White Mountains of Vermont 
and New Hampshire" became "the prodigious hilltops of New 
Hampshire," with the internal rhyme on the short "i" sound and 
the balanced rhythms of "hilltops" and "Hampshire.")
Under this rule, Obama's "Yes we can" is not plagiarized from 
César Chávez's famous rallying cry, "Sí se puede," because it is 
transformative: The refrain changes in Obama's translation 
(which is not the literal "Yes, it can be done" or "Yes, it is 
possible"), and its context changes from the 1972 protest 
against Arizona's farmworker labor laws to a more general call 
to heal the nation.

• Rule No. 2: If it's from a speechwriter or adviser, it's not 
plagiarism. King heavily edited his aides' drafts for "I Have A 
Dream," keeping what he liked and discarding or reworking 
material he felt didn't suit him.
Some sentences ended up in the speech verbatim, however, such 
as: "In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not 
be guilty of wrongful deeds." But this is not plagiarism; King's 
advisers wanted him to use their words.

Similarly, Hillary Clinton's advisers correctly argue President 
Clinton's 1993 Inaugural Address did not plagiarize "force the 
spring" from Father Tim Healy, the former president of 
Georgetown University. The phrase came from a letter Healy wrote 
to Bill Clinton that suggested language for the inaugural. And 
Obama's lines from Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts are not, 
as Hillary Clinton put it in last Thursday's University of Texas 
debate, "change you can Xerox," an inappropriate use of 
another's words: Patrick was advising Obama on his speeches and 
encouraged Obama to use the lines.

• Rule No. 3: If it's from a widely known source, such as the 
Bible or the founding documents of America, it's not plagiarism. 
King's speeches, like most civil rights oratory, drew on two 
primary sources: The Bible and the founding documents of 
America. King quotes the Declaration of Independence and the 
Bible in "I Have A Dream," but he does not always attribute the 
sources. He says "we will not be satisfied until justice rolls 
down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream," for 
example, but does not acknowledge he is quoting God's words to 
Israel in Amos 5:24.
Yet King did not plagiarize Amos; some sources are so embedded 
in our national consciousness that it is appropriate to use 
their words without attribution.

Hillary Clinton has occasionally used the phrase "send me" in 
her speeches, and some have suggested that she lifted it from 
her husband. Even if that is correct, it is not plagiarism 
because it is based on Isaiah's response to God's call: "Here am 
I. Send me." (Isaiah 6:8)

When I speak on King's oratory, many audiences, especially those 
familiar with charges of plagiarism in his academic work, want 
to know whether he plagiarized the phrase, "I Have A Dream." The 
answer is no. Accounts of the phrase's origins differ; I think 
it is based on biblical passages such as Joseph's line in 
Genesis: "I have dreamed a dream." If so, King's use is 
transformative (Rule No. 1) and biblical (Rule No. 3).

Some say King took the phrase from a 1962 sermon by Prathia 
Hall, a young worker for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating 
Committee. Even if that is true, King's use follows the rules. 
Dr. Hall told me shortly before her death that King "did far 
more with it than I could have done." (Rule No. 1).

These ground rules should give us a starting point for 
considering the inevitable charges of oratorical plagiarism that 
will occupy the campaigns between now and November.

The "I Have A Dream" speech borrowed freely from other sources, 
but it was not plagiarized. Based on what we have seen so far, 
neither are the speeches of Clinton and Obama.

Hansen is the author of "The Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr., and 
the Speech that Inspired a Nation" (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2003). 
He is a partner in the Seattle office of Susman Godfrey LLP and 
is raising money for Sen. Obama's presidential campaign. He can 
be e-mailed at drew@drewhansen.com.

http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/The-rules-on-
plagiarism-with-full-credit-to-MLK-1785866.php
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The rules on plagiarism, (with full credit to MLK) "Ronny Koch" <rkoch@banmlkday.com> - 2025-01-23 12:15 +0100

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