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Dear all,
It brings me great disappointment in having to address you under such circumstances, but on behalf of the Stanford Review, I would like to apologize for the recent plagiarism allegations brought against one of our past columnists. As editor emeritus, and the incumbent editor-in-chief at the time of these columns’ publishing, I am obliged to explain to you our position.
In keeping with the Stanford spirit of individual honor, the Review has not checked columnists’ work for plagiarism in the past. The recent allegations brought forward have been against Vasant Ramachandran, who was a frequent contributor to the Review last year. Mr. Ramachandran was an opinion columnist, and a long-standing writer for the Review. Having personally known him, I endorsed his intellect when selecting him as a columnist, as would anyone who knows Vasant. It never occurred to us that he may have plagiarized any part of his articles. He has since graduated from Stanford, and is no longer affiliated with the Review. As of now, we have taken down all of Mr. Ramachandran’s columns, and they will remain offline pending further investigation.
The Stanford Review has had a long tradition of conducting insightful and professional journalism. We have always highly revered our readership, and have upheld our journalistic integrity for over 25 years of being in print. I assure you that these accusations are not a reflection of any intentions or shortcomings of ours. At a college campus that is home to some of the most brilliant young minds, it was not unreasonable for us to operate on an honor system, whereby we would not judge the authenticity of our columnists’ work unless faced with blatant plagiarism. However, we have learned from this incident that we must be more vigilant, and are implementing policies to ensure that nothing will get published on the Review until it has passed a plagiarism check.
To those writers whose work has been plagiarized, we are completely contrite, and will ensure that all such work is taken down. To our readers, we implore that you recognize our merits as a major college journal, and our efforts to develop best practices from this setback. The Stanford Review will always strive to bring you the best investigative journalism from the Farm, as it has for many generations of Stanford graduates.
Thank you,
Nadiv Rahman
Nadiv Rahman ’13 is a graduating senior. He was editor-in-chief of the Stanford Review during Volume 48, and has been involved with the Review since Spring ’10.
