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We’ve all heard of them – the miscreants, the prosecuted, the kids who fade into the background under a cloud of secrecy and shame: the Parkhursted. Few people know what “Parkhursting” actually entails beyond a revocation of BlitzMail and a push out of the Dartmouth bubble. Like car accidents and death, people usually think, “That won’t happen to me.” At least that is what Daniel Obaseki '07 thought up until his entrance into the world of suspension. “I used to think there was a certain type of kid that got Parkhursted,” Obaseki said. “The individuals who bought papers, or cheated on tests. I never realized there’s an entire subculture of kids getting shafted by the system.”</p>
<p>Obaseki had just returned from a stressful recruiting trip this fall and had been hired by an investment banking firm. **He was a senior, five credits away from graduating, and the tracks for the next stage in life had been set into place. Life was good. After dinner with his best friend he stopped at the Thayer BlitzMail terminals to make plans for the night. But then he saw it, an email from his philosophy professor. He had been suspected of plagiarism. The paper that he had stayed up all night writing had been forwarded to Undergraduate Judicial Affairs. The process had been set in motion, and Obaseki would later be suspended for three terms. “I’m thinking ‘This can’t be happening,’” Obaseki said. “‘Oh God, my life is over.’” **</p>
<p>When Obaseki first received the fateful news, he read over his paper and realized that in his rush to send it in via BlitzMail, he had forgotten to add in his citations. “It was clear to anyone looking at the paper that it was a mistake,” Obaseki said. “I had attributed statements throughout the paper to certain philosophers which clearly showed that I was intending to insert the citations.”</p>
<p>According to Thompson, though, “regardless of the intent, a violation of the honor principle is a violation of the honor principle.” </p>
<p>Dean Nelson compared unintentional plagiarism to exceeding the speed limit. “The college’s book on sources makes it clear that plagiarism is an issue really independent of intention just like exceeding the speed limit is unintentional,” Nelson said. “You may not have been intending to exceed the speed limit, but you still did. If you turn in a paper where you unintentionally made citation mistakes this is still an instance of plagiarism.” Yet intentionality can potentially play a role in the length of suspension. “If there are two students who have been convicted of plagiarism, and one student’s plagiarism was premeditated, the sanction for this individual might look different than a student who made citation mistakes,” Nelson said.</p>
<p>For his evidence, Obaseki brought in his outline, notes, sources and printouts. “Along the margins of my notes were marks which indicated exactly where a certain quote or passage was going to be used in the paper,” Obaseki said. “The dean who heard my case told me that she was not questioning my integrity and that she wished there were 4,000 kids like me at Dartmouth, but that she was going to have to get me on a technicality. If she was not questioning my integrity, the tenet on which the principle is founded, what was she questioning?”</p>
<p>To receive his verdict, Obaseki was brought to the office of a dean who had not heard his case. He had never met her before. In the envelope that she handed him was a letter which found him guilty of plagiarism and told him that he was suspended for three terms. </p>
<p>“I went into shock mode,” Obaseki said. “I gave the dean a look of incredulity and then left to call my parents and friends.” In the envelope there was also a form for reapplication to Dartmouth which noted that students were not guaranteed readmission. Obaseki had 48 hours to pack his bags and leave campus.</p>
<p>Obaseki now makes up a group of students that he refers to as the “disenchanted and disenfranchised.” One of the stipulations of suspension is that any classes a student takes outside of Dartmouth during the suspension period cannot count as transfer credits. Knutson complained about the lack of options for suspended students. “When felons get released from jail, the government will find them work,” Knutson said. “I had no job or internship. I wasted an entire term.” </p>
<p>Ultimately, Obaseki admits that he did make an error. “I made the careless and rushed mistake of forgetting to include my citations. However, to say that such a mistake warrants a year of my life is hard for me to accept,” he said.
[TheDartmouth.com</a> | On trial: the committee on standards](<a href=“http://thedartmouth.com/2007/01/19/mirror/on/]TheDartmouth.com”>http://thedartmouth.com/2007/01/19/mirror/on/)