One of the most important life lessons we all have to learn as we move through life is: Move on.

When you began work at Teachers College there were many problems at Teachers College and in your department that festered long before your first day. Some were financial. Others included ideological and personality clashes among faculty and a pointless collage of courses that do not prepare students for actual work in their field. The most misleading and deceptive was the “appearance” of an enlightened, mature and evolved staff and curriculum that supposedly reflected this. The problems were several. These problems needed to be resolved from the top down. But, when school leadership and administration do not know how to resolve problems, and do not listen to what needs to be changed to the benefit of all tied to a program or school, things get uglier and can take a turn for the worst.

Perhaps the most important thing you have to share with others is that no matter how many hurdles you jump and how hard you work in any work setting, someone will always conspire against you. This may be due to jealousy, inept, incompetent leadership, a grudge at having you around, or about the game of being in an environment where the rules are constantly changing to the benefit of those who hold the power and the cards. I am sure that in your work toward your credentials that you were told indirectly if not directly that plagiarism is not allowed and could cost one one’s credibility, reputation and career. One’s hard work and sacrifice to get to a certain point could become lost and destroyed. The funny thing is that TC’s supposedly open outward message of diversity does not reflect TC’s actual nature. The old guard has the power and is intent on keeping the power it holds.

Teachers College has a casual concern for development of students into skilled, knowledgeable professionals. Its objective is to stay afloat financially, which is every schools’ objective. Your old department, the Counseling department’s main purpose and point is to be an additional source of revenue for the school. Period. Point blank. Pity for past, present and future students who do not see this at the door. It showed a “tolerance” for “diversity initiatives” provided that some money could be made from them. Again, the point was money. Revenue. You might have come to know this as the years passed and your own eyes opened.

Despite the distress and sheer aggravation in your experience at TC, there is a bright side: you no longer have to deal with the fraud, sabotage, and hypocrisy that is Teachers College. Your eyes are now open. Good for you.

so you’re saying that she plagiarized because she feels so pressured to publish? well, that’s no one’s fault but her own. there’s a reason there’s survival of the fittest. if she can’t hack it, she doesn’t deserve to have the job, and no amount of talking about our feelings or whatever the hell Kelley suggested is ridiculous.

“…we should be making special efforts to extend compassion to her and those who feel wounded as a result of her actions. We should be having community dialogues to emphasize the importance of academic honesty. At the same time, we should critique the environment of competitiveness here at Columbia that only breeds dishonesty and mistrust.”

why should we extend compassion to those who knowingly lie and cheat for personal gain? this is not okay, why pretend that it is? frankly, the only thing the “wounded” want is justice. this is not a race issue; she plagiarized, plain and simple, and she deserves to pay the consequences. and no one needs a community discussion to talk about academic honesty. it’s black & white: plagiarism is wrong, only submit your own work. students are taught about this in middle school for goodness sakes! so if you’re such an idiot that you don’t know that plagiarism is wrong, you shouldn’t have graduated high school, much less be a professor at one of the nation’s top institutions.
and we should “critique the the environment of competitiveness here at Columbia that only breeds dishonesty and mistrust”?
WTF? no we shouldn’t. if you can’t handle the competition, then why come to an Ivy League school? and competition does not breed “dishonesty and mistrust”. dishonest people breed “dishonesty and mistrust”. cheaters people breed “dishonesty and mistrust”. liars breed “dishonesty and mistrust”. and this “dishonesty and mistrust” is amplified when the one at fault is a professor, someone who should be setting an example for the students.
and amplified further when idiots like Anthony Kelley spout ludicrous comments about how we should pity the wrong-doers and advocate “black radical feminism”.

that is the last thing this country needs. at this point, people are so worried about not appearing racist towards blacks that they have begun acting racist towards whites (i am not white). she’s an idiot. if she was white, asian, pacific islander, or anything else, she’d still be an idiot. this is not a race issue, it’s simply a matter of wrong and right. she’s wrong.