Little Rock Superintendent Dexter Suggs Plagiarized Hefty Sections of His Dissertation

As I was finishing my doctorate, a story was circulating of a graduate who had his doctorate revoked years after graduating because he had not properly cited some part of his dissertation.

That made me go back and actually over-cite sections of my own dissertation to be sure it would not happen to me.

However, there are those who are willing to risk it all, lift the work of others and slap their names on it in the seeming belief that no one really scrutinizes dissertations, anyway.

It seems that one such scholar is (ahem) Dr. Dexter Suggs, Little Rock School District superintendent.

Today is not Dr. Suggs’ day.

From Matt Campbell’s Blue Hog Report:

About that Doctorate: Dexter Suggs, Plagiarist

Posted by Matt Campbell

William Ralph Inge once wrote, “Originality is undetected plagiarism.” Whether that is true or not, it is useful in a meta sense, as quoting Inge directly means that the use of his words is not plagiarism in this particular instance.

Now, as a general rule, there are few things that educators dislike more than plagiarism. Ask any high school English teacher what the biggest problems are with her students’ assignments and plagiarism will always rank higher than comma-splice errors or split infinitives. In the Little Rock School District, for example, plagiarism is punished by, among other things, a student’s receiving no credit for the assignment.

Which, I suppose, means it’s a good thing for LRSD Superintendent Dexter Suggs that his dissertation for his doctorate in education was not an assignment for an LRSD class.

This is Dr. Suggs’s 2009 dissertation, entitled “The Impact of Middle School Principal Leadership on the Integration of Technology in Selected Middle Schools within the Indianapolis Public School District.”

Download (PDF, 39.88MB)

If you scroll to page 120 in the PDF (118 in the numbered pages within the PDF), you will not see “Scott, Georganne (2005). Educator Perceptions of Principal Technology Leadership Competencies.” This omission is particularly glaring, mainly because “Dr.” Suggs lifted entire pages of his dissertation from this 2005 dissertation.

Consider the following (and note that Suggs’ dissertation is on the left in all of these comparisons) Note: Click on images to view comparison:

And this isn’t all by a long shot. For the rest of this installment, see Campbell’s entire post:

http://www.bluehogreport.com/2015/04/15/about-that-doctorate-dexter-suggs-plagiarist/

And his sequel:

http://www.bluehogreport.com/2015/04/15/more-on-dexter-suggs-academic-dishonesty/