The former Ohio University distinguished professor recently stripped of his honorary title demanded yesterday that The Post retract a story stating he copied text in his 1989 book from his student's 1988 thesis.
Jay Gunasekera, featured in a front-page article in yesterday's Post because he was ousted as a distinguished professor, wrote in an e-mail that he did not copy from his student's thesis, as the story stated. The Post is investigating Gunasekera's complaint.
Gunasekera, still a tenured professor at OU, previously declined to comment on the story through a secretary.
The Post states that I copied portions of a student's thesis
specifically a narrative describing the software known as STREAM Gunasekera wrote. Such statements are entirely false.
The Post reported yesterday that Gunasekera's 1989 book contains multiple paragraphs that also appear in Bhavin Mehta's 1988 master's thesis. Gunasekera approved the thesis written by Mehta, who later became a professor at OU but whose contract was not renewed in 2006.
In his e-mail, Gunasekera wrote that the words in his 1989 book and in Mehta's thesis come from a user manual Gunasekera wrote in 1983 for his STREAM software. Gunasekera and his lawyer could not be reached for comment or for clarification of the nature of the STREAM software.
I wrote the original code for the software more than five years before Dr. Mehta wrote his thesis. After authoring the original code for the software I allowed my graduate students
including Dr. Mehta
to modify the code for their own theses
Gunasekera wrote.
Gunasekera's daughter, Eva Gunasekera, said yesterday that neither she nor her father could provide The Post a copy of the 1983 user manual immediately because they were not in Athens, but they would do so as soon as possible.
Fred Gittes, an attorney for Mehta, said late yesterday he could not comment until he talked with his client.
Previously, Gittes had said Mehta knew his thesis would be used as Jay saw fit
with or without credit. Gunasekera's book credits Mehta for his valuable contributions to the material in this work.
Both Mehta and Gunasekera are suing OU for defamation after school officials released a report in 2006 indirectly identifying both men and accusing them of approving a large number of theses containing plagiarism.
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Matt Zapotosky
