"No one has consulted me," said Gary Orfield, a University of California, Los Angeles professor whose 1990 paper, an expert said, features passages that were later lifted liberally, and without citation, by Jackson. 

"My view is that if there is substantial multiple copying without citation it is plagiarism and if it is uncertain the author should be consulted," he continued. 

The development follows The State News’ reporting last week on a letter sent by President Kevin Guskiewicz and Provost Thomas Jeitschko to campus leaders announcing a university review had exonerated Jackson, as well as condemning "racist, vile and despicable" attacks made against Jackson after allegations of his plagiarism went public in October. 

Orfield’s comments are noteworthy in that those scholars who are said to have been plagiarized are seldom heard from in cases of this sort. And, in the rare cases they are, they often take little, or no, issue with the work that allegedly stole their own. In fact, in the highest-profile academic plagiarism scandal in recent memory — which centered around Harvard’s then-president, Claudine Gay — several of those said to have been plagiarized told university investigators they had no objections, according to a university review of the allegations. 

Peter Hoffer — a professor of history at the University of Georgia and academic plagiarism expert — suggests that dynamic exists because the plagiarized scholars may sense allegations of this sort are in bad-faith, and politically motivated. (The Washington D.C.-based outlet that initially published the allegations against Jackson, The Washington Free Beacon, expressly leans conservative and has reported extensively on plagiarism allegations against Black scholars and scholars of diversity, equity and inclusion: Jackson is both.)

"My very impressionistic sense is that most people, when they find that they have been plagiarized, are very forgiving, particularly if there is a political motive in the accusation (as there seems to be here)," he said in an emailed statement to The State News. "After all, the sources from whom the accused has taken material probably agree with the accused’s point of view."

Orfield’s comments further underscore how university reviews of plagiarism allegations against those within their ranks rarely settle the score, with observers often critiquing them and media outlets continuing to report on their veracity. In Harvard’s case, a U.S. House of Representatives committee even requested the university share documents from its plagiarism review of Gay after it had concluded, amid broader scrutiny of her administration, including its handling of campus hate speech. 

Details around MSU’s investigation of Jackson are largely unclear, aside from the letter exonerating him, which said the review "encompassed relevant documents, records, and materials referred to in the Allegation and confirmed that Dean Jackson’s work meets our institution's highest standards of academic integrity."

MSU spokesperson Amber McCann declined to answer questions seeking details on methods employed in the internal review, as well as the university’s response to Orfield’s comment. McCann also declined a request for documents from the internal review, saying "The documents you requested are not public documents."

The State News has filed a Freedom of Information Act Request seeking such documents. 

Experts varied on whether universities should involve those said to have been plagiarized in their investigations. 

Ivan Oransky, a distinguished journalist in residence at New York University, runs the site Retraction Watch, which investigates plagiarism and academic misconduct. He said that unless the allegation is that the accused stole from a "collaborator or grad student," there’s no use in consulting them for the investigation. 

"They're not a witness to what happened," Oransky wrote in an email to The State News. "While we should obviously sympathize with those whose work was stolen, the findings in a case should depend on text analysis, to which a victim can't really add anything."

Jonathan Bailey — who’s served as an expert witness in plagiarism cases and runs the website Plagiarism Today — said that although those said to have been plagiarized aren’t typically consulted during university reviews, he would "like to see this change at least a little."

Bailey argued that universities aren’t primarily concerned with the feelings of those who had their work stolen in plagiarism reviews of this sort.

If universities did center those "victims," he said, then forms of plagiarism that benefit the plagiarized — like ghostwriting and essay mills — would be allowed. 

Universities' lack of concern for those plagiarized means that "even if someone feels wronged, the school may rule the other way," Bailey said. 

"I would like to see this change at least a little. I do feel that victims should have a voice in these things, even if that voice is overruled."

Hoffer, the University of Georgia professor, said that while university plagiarism investigations are imperfect, particularly in that they run the risk of conflicts of interest, the alternative often proves trivial. 

"University investigations of plagiarism do run the risk of conflict of interest, but asking outside law firms to examine text for plagiarism rarely (never?) results in a finding of serious misconduct," Hoffer wrote in an emailed statement to The State News.

Still, John Budd, a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri who has studied plagiarism extensively, said he has questions about MSU’s review, due in no small part to the fact that Orfield wasn’t consulted. 

Budd argues reaching out to the "aggrieved persons" in plagiarism cases is necessary as those people can clarify whether allegedly copied language is merely a "rephrasing of common knowledge" or a "restating of language that occurs in many, many works."  

"In other cases, it's outright lifting of passages from the original work, and that is much more serious," Budd said. "So they probably should go to the people whose work it is that is the basis of accusation."

But outside of MSU’s not consulting Orfield, Budd said questions remain for him as to how exactly MSU determined Jackson didn’t plagiarize, as his reading of the initial plagiarism complaint is that the copying is rather cut-and-dry.  

"It does look like there is some substantive and fairly extensive replication of the original work," he said. "Some of the replication is a word here and there, and that can be dismissed easily, but some of it is entire sentences and maybe even paragraphs."  

"That's a bit more troubling."

Senior Reporter Alex Walters contributed reporting.