Author: Citation by Dean Is a Sham

The controversy over allegations of plagiarism in a law review article gained a new wrinkle when the author of a book on human rights complained that a Santa Ana law school dean cited his book as a source without using any material from it.

John W. Montgomery, a British law professor and author of “Human Rights and Human Dignity,” said he believes Trinity Law School Dean Winston L. Frost improperly used his book as a source.

Frost, 43, has been suspended with pay while officials of the small Christian law school investigate allegations that he lifted text from the Encyclopaedia Britannica for an article he wrote last year on the history of human rights for the school’s law review.

The encyclopedia was not in a long list of footnotes included in Frost’s article, “The Development of Human Rights Discourse: A History of the Human Rights Movement.” However, Montgomery’s book was cited as a source in nine footnotes in the 37-page article.

Montgomery founded the law school at the same location, then named Simon Greenleaf School of Law, before it was purchased by Trinity International University in Deerfield, Ill. The university is owned by the Evangelical Free Church of America.

Montgomery wrote last week to Gregory L. Waybright, president of Trinity International and provost Barry J. Beitzel. In his letter, a copy of which was provided to The Times by one of his colleagues, Montgomery wrote that Frost “simply attaches references to my book to material which he has in fact derived from the Encyclopaedia Britannica.”

Montgomery, interviewed Tuesday, said “Frost is a sad case of a person who took a shortcut to make the article appear scholarly.”

“Nothing whatsoever in his article came from my book,” Montgomery said.

Frost’s lawyer said the letter was motivated by a previous dispute between Trinity and Montgomery.

Waybright and Beitzel did not respond to numerous requests for comment. Staff members referred questions to attorneys hired by the university to investigate the allegations against Frost.

Attorney Ken Anderson said Montgomery’s letter “is a possible area of further inquiry.”

Montgomery admitted he was annoyed by Trinity’s refusal to recognize him as a founder of their law school. “But this has no bearing to what he did in this article. It’s not a question of motive on my part,” he said. “The problem still remains. He used my book inappropriately.”

Frost’s attorney Tom Borchard blamed any problems in Frost’s article on editing errors.