Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Adam Wheeler story

Says his lawyer, “He’s never been in trouble before.” But Adam Wheeler is in trouble now.

For me, the most remarkable detail in the Adam Wheeler story is his application essay for the Rhodes Scholarship, which plagiarized the work of Stephen Greenblatt. A Harvard English major plagiarizing the work of a Harvard English professor: the plagiarizer’s self-confidence suggests the Dunning-Kruger effect. Then again, Wheeler’s Harvard career seems to have given him good reason to think that he could get away with anything.

I suspect a movie in a couple of years. A good title: Veritas.

Campuses Ensnared by “Life of Deception” (New York Times)
Ex-Harvard Student, Adam Wheeler, Pleads Not Guilty to Charges of Fabricating Academic History (Harvard Crimson)
Wheeler’s résumé (via The New Republic, where Wheeler applied for an internship)

comments: 1

William V. Madison said...

Veritas: brilliant!