The process and eventual punishments amount to a set of minor inconveniences for some students, said Price, whose office provides guidance to students in such proceedings. But it can have more serious impacts on those whose access to things like student visas and scholarship money is predicated on academic success. 

MSU’s process when one of its top administrators — College of Education Dean Jerlando Jackson — faced a plagiarism accusation in October seemed to play out leniently by contrast.

Public records show that after Jackson was accused, MSU’s research integrity officer conducted a "preliminary assessment" of the complaint against Jackson to determine if an investigation was warranted. 

What that preliminary assessment consisted of is largely unclear, with the university entirely redacting a report of its findings when initially released to The State News in response to a public records request. That obfuscation raises further questions about the preliminary assessment's veracity after plagiarism experts expressed concerns along those lines in a January State News article.  

But what is known is that 14 days after it was filed, the institution decided the complaint — which includes comparisons of Jackson’s work with other publications that he seemed to at-times lift text from liberally and without citation — wasn’t worth further looking into. (The university entirely redacted the complaint when released to The State News, but a copy of it published by The Washington Free Beacon is publicly available.)

Though Price sympathizes with Jackson, who is Black and has studied diversity, equity and inclusion, given the "potential bias" of the initial allegations against him, she suggested there’s a double standard in how MSU handles academic dishonesty allegations against students and those in its top ranks.

"Students don’t have that same luxury of going through the investigation before the actual investigation," Price said.

'It’s supposed to be neutral…'

In the average semester, Price said her office works on upwards of 40 academic dishonesty cases with students that go to hearings. Of those cases, only 22% end with the student cleared of wrongdoing. 

Price said that for some found guilty, the impact amounts to minor inconveniences, like having to write an extra essay and take an hours-long online course on "academic integrity" as sanctions for their academic dishonesty. 

But for others, a finding of wrongdoing can present real risks.  

Price said international students at MSU on visas, students who depend on financial aid and scholarships, and those with ambitions of being admitted to graduate schools, can be jeopardized by a finding of academic dishonesty. 

"Those residual effects will really be a negative impact for them," she said. 

Aside from potential inconveniences or grave consequences stemming from a finding of academic dishonesty, Price said the process leading to that determination can be in itself arduous for students. 

The often-lengthy process begins when a professor, suspecting a student of plagiarizing, or otherwise cheating on an assignment, files an "Academic Dishonesty Report" with the university's Office of Student Support and Accountability, Price explained. 

The student is then notified of the claim, and provided with a list of alleged violations of student conduct policies, which they can choose to accept or deny. 

If the student accepts the violations, they’re given a set of sanctions, which can range in severity from having to write an extra essay to receiving a failing grade in the class, Price said. In all cases where a student is found guilty, one disciplinary measure is guaranteed: Students are required to take an online academic integrity course. 

But if the student disputes the allegations against them, they are entitled to a hearing, where they argue their innocence — at times with students rights advocates’ assistance — and face questioning from the hearing board. 

Though the hearings aren’t designed to play out like a courtroom trial or feature "cross-examination" of the accused, Price said they do at-times feel "biased" in favor of the professor, and like the accused student is forced to overcome the burden of proof. 

"It's supposed to be neutral, but sometimes it could seem as though it's not trying to gain clarity for both sides," she said. 

MSU spokesperson Amber McCann disputed that characterization, saying the burden of proof in a hearing lies with the professor who made the complaint against the student. 

From there, the student can appeal the hearing board’s findings, requiring additional meetings and elongating the process further.

"That can just take a good chunk of the year to go through that whole thing," Price said, adding that it’s often difficult to schedule hearing dates given that hearing boards are comprised of faculty members and students with busy schedules. 

In the past, students have had strict holds placed on their student accounts as long as a final resolution in their case remains outstanding, Price added, though the university has been more lenient about temporarily lifting those holds in recent years. 

'Potential bias' of allegations against Jackson

Though it appears Jackson didn’t face the burden of proving his innocence the way students often do in academic dishonesty proceedings, Price said, that doesn’t mean he necessarily had an easy time by comparison. 

Given what she called the "potential bias" of the allegations against Jackson, and the racism he faced after they were publicized, "the burden kind of was on him from that perspective."

The plagiarism complaint against Jackson was first published by the conservative, Washington D.C.-based outlet The Washington Free Beacon, which has reported extensively on plagiarism allegations against Black academics and scholars of diversity, equity and inclusion. Jackson is both. 

Jackson was initially implicated in separate reporting about plagiarism allegations against Harvard’s former president, Claudine Gay, and former Chief Diversity Officer LaVar Charleston, both of whom are Black. That reporting came amid a broader conservative crusade against progressivism in higher education that is now taking shape under President Donald Trump’s administration.  

A post on X by the journalist who authored the article about the plagiarism complaint against Jackson went viral in October.  

Replies to that post were rife with racist insults against Jackson, and stereotypes against Black Americans — attacks that MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz strongly condemned in a January letter announcing Jackson had been exonerated of wrongdoing by an internal review. 

Despite the unfair circumstances faced by Jackson, Price said it would still be beneficial for MSU to be more "transparent" about its methods in clearing the dean of wrongdoing. That way, any "inconsistencies" in how plagiarism allegations are handled across the university might be uncovered. 

New documents shed marginal light

When The State News filed a public records request for the internal review that cleared Jackson, the university only released an entirely redacted version, shielding information from public view on how it exonerated the dean. 

Then, when the State News appealed those redactions, MSU turned over some internal documents that shed marginal light on how the university handled the allegations. 

The university also pulled back the curtain on close to three pages of the five-page preliminary assessment report. Those pages, though, only show a list of all the publications referred to in the plagiarism complaint against Jackson. 

Other documents released to The State News on appeal include a university governing document titled "Procedures Concerning Allegations of Misconduct in Research and Creative Activities," which was last updated by The Board of Trustees in 2009. 

That document includes guidelines for how complaints of academic dishonesty against faculty members should be handled, which stipulates the first step is a "preliminary assessment" by the research integrity officer to determine whether a full investigation based on the complaint is warranted.

"The (research integrity officer) shall determine that an Inquiry is warranted if, in his or her judgement, (1) the respondent’s alleged conduct could constitute Misconduct or Unacceptable Research Practices, and (2) there is credible Evidence to support further review of the allegation," the document said. 

"Misconduct" and "Unacceptable Research Practices" are defined in the opening section of the document, though the language seemingly provides ample room for discretion in their interpretation. 

Documents released to The State News also show the timeline of the university’s consideration of the allegations against Jackson. 

The complaint was received by the university on Oct. 3, 2024. Fourteen days later, the university’s research integrity officer, Charles Cox, emailed Vice President for Research and Innovation Doug Gage that his preliminary assessment "came to the conclusion of Inquiry not warranted."

The documents also indicate that while a person who files a plagiarism complaint can typically appeal the decision not to investigate, that was not a possibility in this case as the complainant was anonymous.