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   dealing with complex theological conceptions, Dr. King lifted   
   entire sentences and some longer passages from the works of   
   Tillich, Mr. Boozer and other authors.   
      
   In one passage, for example, Dr. King wrote, "The basic   
   characteristic of the symbol is its innate power." Mr. Boozer,   
   discussing the same concept, wrote, "A characteristic of the   
   symbol is its innate power."   
      
   In his academic papers Dr. King occasionally used another   
   author's argument as his own, the researchers found, and even   
   where he did use citations and footnotes, his reliance on   
   previous material was often more extensive than he explicitly   
   acknowledged.   
      
   But Mr. Carson said it was important to understand the scholarly   
   context of the work. He said it was not uncommon, especially in   
   dealing with abstract theological concepts, for interpreters to   
   rely on and even paraphrase the same material; in this case, the   
   conception of God as set forth by Tillich.   
      
   "That doesn't excuse King, because clearly students are supposed   
   to put even difficult and complex thoughts into their own   
   words," Mr. Carson said in a telephone interview. "But Tillich   
   is particularly difficult because his writing is fairly dense."   
   Discovery of Similarities   
      
   Graduate students at Stanford who were working on the papers   
   project first noticed similarities in the dissertation to other   
   works as early as 1988. They then investigated other academic   
   papers, finding a recurrent pattern.   
      
   The findings were presented to the project's advisory board of   
   scholars in October 1989, but Mr. Carson, as senior editor,   
   decided not to make public any details until the first   
   installment of the collected papers was published. The original   
   date for publication was the end of this year.   
      
   Mr. Carson said yesterday that the first two volumes of the 14-   
   volumne series -- covering Dr. King's early life up to 1955, the   
   year of the dissertation -- were now expected to be published,   
   with footnotes nearly as extensive as the text itself, in 1992.   
      
   Scholars familiar with the papers say the academic works are Dr.   
   King's least important writings and show very little of the   
   dramatic orator who was to emerge so forcefully in later years.   
   Mr. Garrow, Dr. King's biographer, described the dissertation as   
   "dry as bones," and said that was why no one had ever published   
   it.   
      
   Mr. Garrow, said that as far back as 1970 he was aware that   
   parts of books and articles published by Dr. King after he left   
   Boston University probably had been written by others. He said   
   Dr. King's speeches also borrowed from others because in the   
   oral tradition in which Dr. King lived, it was common for   
   ministers and preachers to adopt as their own the words of   
   prominent men who had come before them.   
      
   Mr. Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference   
   agreed. "Preachers have an old saying," he said. "The first time   
   they use somebody else's work, they give credit. The second   
   time, they say some thinker said it. The third time they just   
   say it." Book to Examine Borrowings   
      
   According to The Wall Street Journal article, Keith Miller, a   
   professor of rhetoric at Arizona State University, has written a   
   book, soon to be published, that will outline how Dr. King   
   borrowed liberally from others, even in some of his most famous   
   speeches.   
      
   In trying to explain why the young Dr. King had relied so   
   heavily in his academic writings on the work of others, those   
   involved speculate that it was perhaps just the strain of that   
   time in his life. Dr. King never intended to be a university   
   scholar, and wrote most of his dissertation while working as   
   pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala.   
      
   While academic experts will resolve the extent of the plagiarism   
   and the validity of the doctoral degree, the allegations will   
   raise more questions about the character of Dr. King.   
      
   In 1989 the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, in his autobiography   
   "And the Walls Came Tumbling Down," published by Harper & Row,   
   stated that Dr. King engaged in extramarital sex on the night   
   before he was killed. Dr. King's son, Dexter Scott King, was   
   also involved in a recent controversy. In August 1989, he was   
   made president of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for   
   Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, the site of Dr. King's   
   crypt. But in a few weeks he resigned in what was reported as a   
   family dispute over the direction the center should take. Widow   
   Declines to Comment   
      
   Mrs. King, who set up the papers project in 1984 to assure that   
   her husband's scattered writings and speeches were collected and   
   edited by reliable scholars, would not comment on the latest   
   controversy, referring all questions to Mr. Carson at Stanford.   
      
   In October 1989, the editors discussed preliminary manuscripts   
   of the King papers with the project's advisory board, which, in   
   addition to Mrs. King and Mr. Garrow, includes 11 recognized   
   scholars and 8 other associates of Dr. King.   
      
   Shaken by the allegations, Mr. Garrow said he had been   
   reconsidering his opinion of Dr. King.   
      
   "This has altered my judgment of him as a person," Mr. Garrow   
   said, "though it hasn't shaken my tremendous regard for his   
   courage and dedication to his movement."   
      
   Photo: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (The New York Times,   
   1956)(pg1); ::There are instances of plagiarism in these   
   papers," said Clayborne Carson, who studied the Rev. Dr. Martin   
   Luther King Jr.'s doctoral dissertation. (Associated Press) (pg.   
   10) Graphic: "Examining 2 Dissertations" In his 1955 doctoral   
   thesis, entitled "A Comparison of the Conception of God in the   
   Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman," Martin Luther   
   King Jr. mentioned secondary literature that had been helpful to   
   him, including another doctoral dissertation on Tillich written   
   three years earlier by Jack Bozzer, like a King a graduate   
   student at Boston University. King appropriated many passages   
   from Bozzer's dissertation without footnoting them. An example:   
   KING: Tillich insists that a symbol is more than a merely   
   technical sign. The basic characteristic of the symbol is its   
   inate power. A symbol possesses a necessary character. It cannot   
   be exchanged. A sign, on the contrary, is impotent and can be   
   exchanged at will. A religious symbol is not the creation of a   
   subjective desire or work. If the symbol loses its ontological   
   grounding, it declines and becomes a mere "thing," a sign   
   impotent in itself. BOOZER: Tillish distinguishes between a sign   
   and a symbol. A charateristic of the symbol is its inate power.   
   A symbol possesses a necessary character. It cannot be   
   exchanged. On the other hand a sign is impotent in itself and   
   can be exchanged at will [ ... ] A religious symbol is not the   
   creation of a subjective desire or work. If the symbol loses its   
   ontological grounding, it declines and becomes a mere "thing," a   
   sign impotent in itself. (Source: The Martin Luther King Jr.   
   Papers Project, Statement on Research in Progress, Nov. 9, 1990)   
   (pg.10)   
      
   http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/10/us/plagiarism-seen-by-scholars-   
   in-king-s-phd-dissertation.html?pagewanted=all   
                        
      
      
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