How the Clintons wrapped up Hillary's thesis

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‘It is available at Wellesley’
MSNBC.com asked Sen. Clinton, through her office and presidential campaign staff, whether she would consent to an interview to discuss the thesis and whether she would give permission for MSNBC.com to publish the paper in full. Her Senate staff declined the interview request, and her presidential campaign staff did not reply.

As for allowing the thesis to be published, Clinton's senatorial spokesman, Philippe Reines, said in an e-mail, "You need to contact Wellesley about their policy regarding the release of student work, and seek permission from them." Of course, as Wellesley pointed out, it's the author, not the college, who holds the copyright.

When asked why the Clinton White House had wanted the thesis hidden from the first generation of Clinton biographers, Reines would neither confirm nor deny that the Clintons had requested Wellesley's action. Instead he referred to the current situation. "Senator Clinton's thesis is available to the public, as is any other Wellesley graduate. If someone wants to read it, it is available at Wellesley."

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Besides being available for reading, but not copying, at the Wellesley archives (on the fourth floor of the library, Monday through Friday), the thesis can be read at your local library — one library at a time, that is. A single copy, on microfilm, can be ordered from Wellesley on a 30-day interlibrary loan.

While the traveling copy raises the possibility that someone could check out the microfilm, photocopy it or retype it, and post the text on the Internet, doing so would run the risk of a lawsuit.

The document has copyright protection, though not because the front of the library's copy is marked "c 1969 Hillary D. Rodham." That note, in a different typeface than the manuscript itself, was added by the university's archivist, Wilma Slaight.

"I added that in 1992," Slaight acknowledged. "That was my attempt to indicate that she might have copyright protection."

The attempt was unnecessary, said a copyright specialist, professor Laura N. Gasaway of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With or without the mark, an unpublished work is protected as soon as it's written, and the protection extends until 70 years after the author's death, Gasaway said. Readers can comment on the thesis, or publish limited quotations from it, but anyone who publishes the text could be liable for statutory damages of up to $150,000.

Of course, it's not clear whether a presidential candidate would want to draw even more attention to her writings on an old radical by suing.

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