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Unfreedom!

By Site Administrator - Posted on 25 May 2009

Freedom Chambers is deeply disappointed to learn that Kevin Baldeosingh has been reportedly dismissed.

Kevin's comments about his sacking suggest that it was about his letter that was published in the TT Express on 7th May 2009. See TT Express 2009-05-24. This is the letter that brought down the house of cards that was dubbed an 'Integrity Commission'.

The letter has been the object of much examination and debate - see TT Guardian 2009-05-09.

With Kevin's direct permission we reproduce the full text of the letter below:

 "The Editor:

 
As a newspaper columnist, I adhere strictly to the practice of enclosing in quote marks the words of other people and crediting them when I use their ideas. Henry Charles, the newly appointed chairman of the Integrity Commission, has a PhD in Ethics, so he may be able to explain why, on more than one occasion, he has failed to follow this basic principle of journalism.
 
I have kept files on two instances of Mr Charles’s transgressions. In a column titled “The colour of intelligence”, published on December 24, 2007 in the Trinidad Guardian, he copied 300-plus out of 1000 words (and took four of his seven arguments) from an op-ed piece in the New York Times written on December 9 by psychologist Richard E. Nesbitt. Most recently, on April 13 2009 in a piece titled “The financial crisis & ethics deficit”, Mr Charles lifted virtually in toto a column written by Catholic scholar Darrin Belousek and published in America: the National Catholic Weekly on March 30.
 
On this occasion, I drew the matter to the attention of the Guardian’s editors, copying my email to Mr Charles. I received no response from the editors, but Mr Charles emailed me to say that he appreciated my diligence and that he had little excuse except that he was under deadline pressure. He also included a note in his next column admitting his error to readers.
 
I found his apology unconvincing, but I would have let the matter rest there, except I am now wondering what will happen when, as chairman of the Integrity Commission, Mr Charles finds himself under pressures rather more intense than writing a weekly newspaper column.
 
Kevin Baldeosingh
 
Preysal"

 

Kevin's letter is indeed short and sweet - precise and straight to the point, like an arrow hitting a bullseye. (Interestingly, the full text of the letter could not be found after a careful search of the internet using Google Search.)

Analysis of Plagiarism

Fr Charles has actually admitted to the plagiarism in TT Express 2009-05-07. And in that article Charles described what he said to the President, "I told him that this may come up in the press, you need to know this before you go further with my appointment and I explained to him the circumstances and he said it was not enough to keep him from going ahead with what he wanted to do. So it was not as though it was unknown. The President was fully informed about it and said 'it didn't matter'. And I told the President that if he had the slightest reservation in the light of that, I would step aside immediately. He said 'no. These mistakes do occur, especially with academics' and he went ahead (with the appointment). I told Mr Baldeosingh that himself, but that was clearly not enough to stop him (Baldeosingh) from doing what he wanted to do.."

An actual comparison of Fr Charles' publication 'The colour of intelligence'' in the Guardian of 2007-12-24 with Richard E. Nesbitt's publication 'All brains are the same colour' in The New York Times 2007-12-09 is shown below (from excerpts). Black text represents text common to both publications. Blue text is Fr Charles' and double red strike-through text is Nesbitt's. The particular pieces where text was altered did not appear accidental and time pressure is not a valid excuse for students,  so it is difficult to understand why Fr Charles who has a PhD in Ethics, should offer such a reason/excuse.  

 

Next we compare Darin Belousek's article 'Greenspan's Folly' from America Magazine 2009-03-30 against excerpts of Fr Charles' article in the Guardian of 2009-04-12 'The Financial Crisis & Ethics Deficit' (see below). Black text represents text common to both publications. Blue text is Fr Charles' and double red strike-through text is Belousek's.

Constitutional Rights

As far as we understand it all persons in the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago have Constitutional Rights that protect the expression of political views, and freedom of thought and expression. These Rights are indeed not absolute and may only be infringed by lawful means and as a response that is proportionate to particular circumstances. There is also the matter of whether infringement was carried out by a body acting in a private capacity or as a public authority. It would be interesting therefore to find out whether Kevin Baldeosingh's Rights have been breached, at all, and if so whether any such breach is actionable.

But not even going so far, the sacking raises questions about whether there was any issue of unfair dismissal.

Unless Kevin was lawfully barred from expressing opinions by way of letters to  editors of other newspapers - the expression of a personal opinion - it escapes us how such a letter can lead to a dismissal. Furthermore we wonder what all this means for Constitutionally protected rights of freedom of the Press (S4k of the Constitution)? It does not look good to us.

The President

But there are other important issues for the President. When Prof Richards said - as reported by Fr Charles - that 'it didn't matter', did the President actually know of the nature and quality of the plagiarism?  What could be the importance of that now? Well, since human error is the issue with McFarlane's appointment, it is reasonable to wonder if this was yet again another 'human error' and if so how many are we expected to let pass.

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Jumbie's picture
Time and Tides
Submitted by Jumbie on Mon, 25/05/2009 - 22:22.

Time and tides wait on no man... or priest for that matter. Moses parted the sea, but even he could not make time stop. Why is this significant? For no other reason than Father Charlatan, sorry, I meant Charles, could not slow down the inevitable encroachment of deadlines.

Therefore, in his wisdom, and ethical guidance, he 'lifted' several hundreds of words several times to 'meet' his deadlines.

Who am I to say that the need wasn't critical and urgent?

Until I read the two files above, then it occurred to me that he must have spent several scores of minutes (perhaps as much or more than "Four Score and Seventy") to edit the original articles. Now consider the time that enclosing the same information within two quotation marks (" ") would have taken, and you (the discerning reader) would realise:

  1. The effort was deliberate.
  2. The gall was beyond pale.
  3. The intention towards a show of intellectual capacity was there but the means were lacking.
  4. There was malfeasance in both intention and deed.
  5. The initial lies were compounded by acceptance of the position in the IC, which was another lie - that of presenting himself as a qualified candidate.
  6. In accepting there was deliberate intention to mislead in both thought and deed.

Frankly, I can go on and on... but I will stop there for now. Perhaps, as Kevin Baldeosingh was terminated for exposing the wiles of this sterling Christian, can we now see the Guardian terminating his contributions in future? After all, how can one read anything from him from now on, without thinking it was plagiarised?

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