This is Charles Conteh, a political scientist at Brock University in Canada.

He had a post-doc named Amy Lemay. They worked together on a paper; reading between the lines, it sounds like an awkward partnership. She provided lots of data, but suggested that it really needed to be split into a couple of papers. Conteh disagreed.

In emails seen by Retraction Watch, Conteh asked Lemay and another faculty member for feedback in March 2023, on a draft of the article they were writing. After reviewing their feedback, Conteh said he could no longer proceed with the project, citing “serious reservations” about Lemay’s suggestions to publish separate papers based on policy reports they had produced for Niagara’s Community Observatory platform.

“We can (and most likely will) cite them in future papers, but I object to the idea of us reproducing and republishing them in their current forms,” Conteh wrote in an email seen by Retraction Watch. “I plan to revisit this project at a future date, but at this point, after some reflection, what I can candidly say is that I am not clear about a collaborative way forward.”

So far, so good. As the primary author, it was Conteh’s decision whether the work was ready to publish or not, and it’s actually commendable to not clutter the literature with a paper that was not up to standards. I’m on his side on that, so far.

Except…Conteh then went ahead and published the paper without attribution or acknowledgment anyway! He didn’t even inform his collaborators what he was doing, and they discovered accidentally that he’d dissolved their partnership and intentionally done the exact opposite of what he’d said he would do!

Months later, Lemay discovered the published paper online by accident. The article used text from the policy briefs she had worked on, without citing those sources.

Yikes. I wonder if maybe his relationship with his post-doc was rocky and contentious — I’ve known from first-hand experience a post-doc with an extraordinarily bad relationship with his PI — but that does not excuse improper attribution, and worst of all, plagiarism. Conteh is clearly in the wrong here.

But he then he slathered on a good-sized dollop of bullshit on his behavior, and any sympathy evaporated.

Lemay asked Conteh to add her as a co-author to the paper. In October, Conteh asked a journal editor if the authorship could be updated to include Lemay and another co-author’s name.

Conteh replied he was “glad that you’ve suddenly taken an interest in being a co-author in the manuscript now that it has been published. I am adding your name not because I think you deserve it or are entitled to it, but because it is the noble thing to do.”

You don’t get to magically turn plagiarism into nobility by slapping on an author’s name — that sounds more like you’re trying to buy her cooperation with an authorship, which is not noble at all. Also, if you think she does not deserve it, how is adding an unwarranted authorship “noble”? Get off that high horse, Dr Conteh. You’re just another opportunist.

I also see how Conteh could be a difficult person to work with.

The paper has been retracted, and a Brock University inquiry found Conteh in the wrong.

Another interesting point:

Though she recently finished a postdoc, Lemay worked in academia for 25 years before pursuing her PhD. At this point in her career, she said, she is not intimidated by the “power imbalance” in academia, as some younger students who are still forging a career path may be.

Yes, the hierarchical nature of academia is itself an obstacle to progress.