Regnery issues correction in Labunski dispute

Regnery Publishing Inc. has posted an addendum to its Web description of Chris DeRose's Founding Rivals: Madison vs. Monroe, the Bill of Rights and the Election that Saved a Nation acknowledging that "Material was based on Richard Labunski, Ph.D., James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights (Oxford University Press, 2006). This material was contained on page 247 of the hardcover edition of Founding Rivals, and was not cited."

This correction came in the wake of an extended article Labunski wrote for the History News Network in which he exposed how DeRose had taken statistics from his earlier work in James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights and used them without attribution in Founding Rivals.

Labunski first contacted Regnery back in March informing the company of DeRose's lack of citation(s), but Regnery, while acknowledging that DeRose failed to cite Labunksi's research, called it "inadvertent." Regnery assured Labunski that "Regnery would immediately post a notice on its Web site 'citing [Labunski's] research for this data...'" Only after Labunski's article appeared on HNN on May 21 did Regnery post this correction, issuing a statement to Inside Higher Ed that "Regnery History has responded to Labunski's concerns regarding our book, Founding Rivals by Chris DeRose. We have taken the necessary actions to give his research proper credit and to correct any misconceptions in the marketplace, including updating the eBook version, our website, and adding the appropriate notes to future printings of the book."

Labunski, for his part, attributes the publication of his article on HNN for prompting Regnery to issue the correction. He told Inside Higher Ed that "I doubt [Regnery] would have taken these actions had I not discussed this situation publicly [on HNN]."