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Grant plagiarist Chu sues Texas Southern University

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

IPBiz had earlier discussed the plagiarism of a research grant application by physics prof Rambis Chu. Now, Chu has taken a leaf out of the San Filippo notebook and sued the university over due process issues. The Houston Chronicle reported:

Chu, who was granted tenure as an associate professor of physics last spring, is accused of submitting a grant proposal to the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, copied from one written previously by a physicist at the University of Houston.

TSU declined the $800,000 research grant last summer after discovering the similarity to earlier work by UH physicist John Miller, in whose lab Chu worked while completing post-doctoral studies. Miller has said that Chu asked for a copy of the proposal to use as a guide when he applied for his own grants on other projects.

Both proposals deal with detecting biological warfare agents inside sealed containers. Miller?s was funded by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency in 2002 and 2003. Chu?s proposal was an almost verbatim copy of Miller?s, according to copies of the proposals provided to the Houston Chronicle.

Andrews contends in the lawsuit that Ohia erred in firing Chu for violating the school?s policy on scientific misconduct because no such policy was adopted by the school?s governing board.

Some of the comments to the Chronicle post are of interest.

This was for a grant and not an academic paper. Most grants don't require an original idea, but are written to obtain funds for a project or research. I am not condoning Chu, but there is not enough information to determine if he violated any rules.

AND

Wow, what a defense; "can't fire me for cheating because you have no policy for cheating so it was ok for me to cheat"

Earlier IPBiz post:
Texas professor accused of plagiarizing a grant proposal

Full post as published by IPBiz on May 23, 2009 (boomark / email).