Court Dismisses ASU Academic/Administrator's Libel Suit Against Journal That Had Retracted His Article, with Reference to Possible Plagiarism

This action concerns Dr. Cristobal Rodriguez's allegations of defamation and trade libel against Taylor & Frances Group, LLC …. Dr. Rodriguez is the Associate Dean of Equity, Inclusion, and Community, as well as an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy studies, at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. He researches inclusion and equity in education for "dual language learners, Black, Latino, and Indigenous" families and students. On March 7, 2022, Dr. Rodriguez and two other authors published an article in Educational Studies entitled "Our Separate Struggles Are Really One: Building Coalitions and Solidarity for Social and Racial Justice in Education" …. Educational Studies is an education journal published by Defendant.

Within days of publication, Plaintiff became aware of a potential issue with the Rodriquez Article. Plaintiff and his co-authors researched other published works and discovered that the Rodriquez Article and an article published by Dr. Sonya Douglass Horsford shared references to a conversation between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez and had similar titles. Dr. Horsford titled her article "Our Separate Struggles are Really One: Building Political Race Coalitions for Educational Justice ….

On March 12, 2022, Dr. Rodriguez contacted Defendant to inform them of the overlap due to an oversight to "check for title similarities with other publications," to offer a revised title, and to address certain references in the Rodriguez Article. Plaintiff and his co-authors submitted a revised draft of the Rodriguez Article that included different references and a new title. Defendant accepted the changes and updated the print and online publication. Defendant informed Plaintiff that the editorial board was reviewing the matter but ceased all further communications with Plaintiff.

On June 20, 2022, Defendant informed Plaintiff that it would remove the Rodriguez Article from the issue of Education Studies and issue a retraction on its website with the basis for the retraction. Defendant provided Plaintiff no specific basis for the removal or the specific content of the retraction statement. Defendant then retracted the Rodriguez Article and published a public notice of retraction on its website. The notice referenced both the Rodriguez Article and the Horsford Article and included a brief explanation of Defendant's reasoning:

Since publication, significant concerns have been raised about the fact that this article has substantial overlap with the following article, particularly in title, references, and ideas pertinent to the content … As plagiarism is a serious breach of publishing ethics, we are retracting the article from the journal. We have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retractions.