O.C. Law School Fires Dean in Plagiarism Case

A Santa Ana law school removed its dean from office Friday after investigating charges that he had plagiarized from two publications for an article in the school’s law review.

Yet to be decided is whether Trinity Law School will attempt to remove Winston L. Frost as a tenured faculty member. He was snared in a nearly monthlong probe that began when faculty members at the small Christian law school complained that his article titled “The Development of Human Rights Discourse: A History of the Human Rights Movement” included large portions of text lifted from the Encyclopaedia Britannica and a 1983 paper by legal scholar Jerome J. Shestack. He has claimed that editors of the law review omitted key footnotes and added others.

But in a strongly worded letter released Friday, Trinity International University Provost Barry J. Beitzel dismisses Frost’s explanations. The university is the parent organization of Trinity Law School.

“It is apparent from your response that you have sought to evade all responsibility for the law review article that you authored,” Beitzel wrote. “Both university policy and common sense do not support your position that you have no responsibility in this matter.

“Moreover, your assertion that these allegations of plagiarism are the result of missing and/or erroneous footnotes is a wholly inadequate response,” Beitzel said.

Tom Borchard, Frost’s attorney, angrily denounced Beitzel’s findings as “nothing more than retaliation.”

“The secondary agenda is becoming obvious. This is a process to remove him from the school as a whole,” Borchard said. “Frost never attempted to pass off this article as wholly his own work.”

In addition to losing his position as dean, which he has held since 1998, Frost, 43, was removed as regional president of Trinity International, said university attorney Sheryl Bilas. The university is owned by the Evangelical Free Church of America.

Frost will remain under suspension with pay while the school decides whether to fire him from his teaching job, she said. In addition to looking into the law review article, university officials said they are investigating allegations that portions of Frost’s master’s thesis were plagiarized.

“The university has made the decision to remove him as dean,” Bilas said. “The investigation is continuing and by the end of next week the university expects to make a decision with respect to his position as a tenured professor.”

Frost’s article on human rights appeared in the fall 2000 issue of Trinity Law Review. Frost’s attorneys blamed any problems with the piece on sloppy editing by the student staff. The plagiarism allegations were the latest stumble in the occasionally rocky career of the evangelical Christian lawyer, who also serves as a part-time judge in Orange County Superior Court.

In 1977, he was “involuntarily disenrolled” from the Air Force Academy, according to a spokeswoman there. Academy officials declined to explain the dismissal for privacy reasons. Borchard also declined to comment except to say that Frost’s reason for leaving had “nothing to do with moral turpitude.”

More than a decade later, Frost was criticized when he served as editor of Orange County Lawyer, the local bar association’s magazine, during the early 1990s. He resigned in 1993, when the bar association was bombarded with complaints over the November issue, which had a picture of the Madonna on the cover and a message inside that said, “God gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him shall have eternal life.”

Members of the lawyers group were offended by the religious tone of the issue and complained that it had no place in a publication devoted to legal issues.

In May, he wrote a letter of apology to students at Trinity Law School. Frost had been involved in a heated confrontation with a student during a softball game.

In a May 10, 2001, letter, Frost expressed “regret for any offense that may have been caused when I raised my voice to a fellow student at the softball game.”

In a written declaration released by his attorneys this week, Frost acknowledged that the student, Michael Holmes, had filed a police report. He also wrote that “Holmes has show a propensity to make false allegations and was the person in the best position to sabotage my career by the use of the [allegedly plagiarized] article in question.”

Frost said the article consisted of notes he used for class lectures and other presentations, and had not been intended for publication. However, his attorney said that Frost did supply the article to the law review and knew it was to be published.

Holmes is one of two editors blamed by Frost for the mistakes in his article. Efforts to reach him for comment have been unsuccessful.

Orange County Superior Court Judge David T. McEachen said Frost is still on the list of arbitrators used by the court and there are no plans to remove him.

Arbitrators hear civil cases and are paid $150 per case.