Like all Americans, I have the utmost trust in the integrity and honesty of University Administrators. OK, you got me. Like most Americans, I think whenever their lips are moving they’re lying. I think they lie in their sleep. The invaluable Legal insurrection apparently shares my opinion:
In October of last year, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Jerlando Jackson, the Dean of the College of Education at Michigan State, alleging he committed plagiarism in a number of academic papers over the course of many years.
From that report:
The complaint includes nearly 40 examples of plagiarism that span nine of Jackson’s papers, including his Ph.D. thesis, and range from single sentences to full pages. It adds to the allegations of research misconduct already facing the embattled dean, who was a coauthor on several papers implicated in complaints against diversity officials earlier this year, including Harvard University’s chief diversity officer, Sherri Ann Charleston.
Even the National Association of Scholar’s boss, an organization not known for making unmerited accusations against its members, thought Jackson culpable:
“Jackson has failed all ordinary standards of academic honesty,” said Peter Wood, the head of the National Association of Scholars and a former provost at Boston University, where he helped lead plagiarism investigations of faculty and alumni. “As long as he remains as a dean, the university has no legitimate basis to hold students and faculty to basic standards of intellectual integrity.”
As one might expect, Michigan state has completely cleared Jackson:
From The State News:
MSU: Dean accused of plagiarism, targeted by DEI opponents, ‘exonerated’
Michigan State University said it has exonerated the College of Education’s dean, Jerlando Jackson, after he was accused of plagiarism in October, and implicated in a conservative-media crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion scholarship.
Actually, the clearance was apparently less than complete. The school’s President Kevin Guskiewicz and Provost Thomas Jeitschko told other university brass in a letter they conducted a “preliminary assessment” and decided there wasn’t enough credible evidence to do a real investigation. They called the “preliminary assessment” a “…thorough review [that] encompassed relevant documents, records, and materials referred to in the Allegation…’ They went on to praise Jackson in effusive terms and lauded Jackson’s “distinguished career in education.” They also played the race card—Jackson is black–claiming Jackson was “…the target of racist, vile and despicable attacks…” and amplified their support for him.
The Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium produced an example of Jackson’s plagiarism:
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Graphic: X Screenshot
Claude AI also examined many examples of Jackson’s plagiarism, and its findings were unsurprising:
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Graphic: X Screenshot
Sibarium added:
Sibarium also wrote this update at the Free Beacon:
The complaint against Jackson, which was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, drew particular concern because of his role at MSU’s education school, the top-ranked teacher training program in the country. Steve McGuire, a fellow at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, said it made a “mockery of the whole enterprise of education to have someone who appears to be a serial plagiarist running a school of education.” Peter Wood, who led multiple research misconduct probes as a former provost at Boston University, said that Jackson had “failed all ordinary standards of academic honesty.”
“As long as he remains as a dean, the university has no legitimate basis to hold students and faculty to basic standards of intellectual integrity,” Wood told the Free Beacon at the time. The complaint spanned 68 pages, single-spaced, and described several cases in which Jackson appeared to have lifted entire pages without attribution, tweaking some sentences and details while maintaining the bulk of source material.
Plagiarism, particularly at the college level, has until recently been taken seriously indeed, inevitably leading to student plagiarists losing credit for classes. In more egregious cases, students have been expelled. While it has always been an issue, until recently, cases of professors or administrators committing the offense have been relative uncommon. But with the rise of AI-generated writings, focus on the problem has increased.
Prior to that, over the last several decades, professor/administrator plagiarism has greatly increased due to higher education’s focus on DEI. It’s no secret most colleges have abandoned standards of academic accomplishment and integrity by hiring based on race and gender. This has led to a generation of grossly under-qualified administrators, who hire and promote grossly under-qualified professors. Is it any surprise such people, who managed to rise to the top without merit or real scrutiny of their work, would be discovered to be plagiarists, or that fellow DEI hires or others whose careers were based on support for DEI would refuse to expose plagiarism lest they admit their own academic careers were unethical and fraudulent?
I’ve no idea if Jackson is a DEI hire, but the available evidence suggests his exoneration is a whitewash. What an ironic term.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
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