Deakin Speaking

When I was very young, the father of the neighbor’s family – a young academic - suddenly disappeared. The young academic was working, I was later told, on original research upon which he had pinned the hopes for his career. Nearing the completion of his work, however, a professor he had been working with published the young academic’s original work under the professor’s own name.
There was a complaint but the professor prevailed. This was and often still is the case in such unequal power relationships.
This young academic’s one piece of career-making work stolen and not finding justice through the academic process, he ended his life. It was an extreme response, but one that illustrated the absolute seriousness of intellectual property. It also illustrated the intellectual dishonesty that pervaded academia.