Bob Jensen's Enron Quiz (and answers) --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnronQuiz.htm

15 Most Corrupt Nations in the World ---
http://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/01/27/the-most-corrupt-countries-in-the-world-3/?utm_source=247WallStDailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=JAN282016A&utm_campaign=DailyNewsletter

What Accountants Need to Know --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#AccountantsNeedToKnow

Global Corruption (in legal systems) Report 2007 --- http://www.transparency.org/content/download/19093/263155

Tax Fraud Alerts from the IRS --- http://www.irs.gov/compliance/enforcement/article/0,,id=121259,00.html

White Collar Fraud Site --- http://www.whitecollarfraud.com/
Note the column of links on the left.

Bob Jensen's essay on the financial crisis bailout's aftermath and an alphabet soup of appendices can be found at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm

Bob Jensen's threads on fraud are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm

From CNN:  Clark Howard's Informative Advice About Shopping, Financial Planning, and Warnings About Scams ---
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/clark.howard/?iref=allsearch

Bob Jensen's warnings about scams ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm

Bob Jensen's shopping helpers ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm

Accounting Scandals
The funny thing is that I never looked up this item before now. Jim Mahar noted that it is a good link.

Accounting Scandals --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_scandals

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting scandals are in various documents:

Accounting Firms --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm

Fraud Conclusion --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm

Enron --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm

Rotten to the Core --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm

Fraud Updates --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

American History of Fraud --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudAmericanHistory.htm

Fraud in General --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud.htm

AICPA Fraud Resource Center --- Click Here
http://www.aicpa.org/INTERESTAREAS/FORENSICANDVALUATION/RESOURCES/FRAUDPREVENTIONDETECTIONRESPONSE/Pages/fraud-prevention-detection-response.aspx

IRS Identity Protection Specialized Unit at 800-908-4490

The Worst Corruption Scandal in Each State ---
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/03/27/worst-corruption-scandal-in-each-state/?utm_source=247WallStDailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=MAR282018A&utm_campaign=DailyNewsletter

Jensen Comment
This is tough, because of definitions and money versus lives criteria. For example, the worst corruption scandal in Massachusetts was about lives rather than money. The worst scandal in New York may not have been the worst money scandal after victims received settlements.
Corruption, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates are at http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

AICPA:  Phone scams and phishing featured in 2018's Dirty Dozen tax scams ---
https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2018/mar/2018-tax-scams-201818623.html?utm_source=mnl:cpald&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=21Mar2018

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

The South Sea Company Bubble was a famous accounting scandal in the early 1700s ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company

Isaac Newton --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton

How Isaac Newton Lost $3 Million Dollars in the “South Sea Bubble” of 1720: Even Geniuses Can’t Prevail Against the Machinations of the Markets ---
http://www.openculture.com/2018/01/how-isaac-newton-lost-3-million-dollars-in-the-south-sea-bubble-of-1720-even-geniuses-cant-prevail-against-the-machinations-of-the-markets.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

Bob Jensen's threads on accounting history ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#AccountingHistory

Five Senators Want To Know Why The FBI Hasn’t Restored Missing Crime Data ---
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/five-senators-want-to-know-why-the-fbi-hasnt-restored-missing-crime-data/

. . .

The annual Crime in the United States report, a collection of crime statistics gathered from over 18,000 law-enforcement agencies around the country, is considered the gold standard for tracking crime statistics in the United States. According to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, the 2016 Crime in the United States report — the first released under President Trump’s administration — contained close to 70 percent fewer data tables than the 2015 version did. The removal could affect analysts’ understanding of crime trends in the country.

 Continued in article

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Francine:  The investors duped by the Theranos fraud never asked for one important thing ---
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-investors-duped-by-the-theranos-fraud-never-asked-for-one-important-thing-2018-03-19
Founder Holmes raised $700 million from investors but never hired accountants to produce audited financial information

Brazil:  Deal with PwC brings Petrobras investors’ recovery to $3 billion ---
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-petrobras-classaction/deal-with-pwc-brings-petrobras-investors-recovery-to-3-billion-idUSKBN1FM26P

Bob Jensen's threads on troubles at PwC ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm

The Atlantic:  For years he used fake identities to charm women out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then his victims banded together to take him down.---
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/04/our-time-com-con-man/554057/

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates are at  ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

South Africa is now also notorious for white-collar crime ---
https://www.theatlas.com/charts/SJs_xpf_M 

U.S. News Strips Ranking From Three Graduate Schools For Submitting False Data ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/03/us-news-strips-ranking-from-three-graduate-schools-for-submitting-fale-data.html

Paul Caron previously have blogged reports of over a dozen schools inflating their rankings by submitting erroneous data to U.S. News (Bucknell, Claremont McKenna, College of Charleston, Creighton, Emory, George Washington, Illinois, Missouri-Kansas City, Temple, Tulane, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Villanova, York College of Pennsylvania).   U.S. News recently announced that it was removing the rankings of three graduate schools for submitting false data:

The University of Florida's College of Nursing originally reported its fiscal year 2016 NIH educational and practical initiative grants and expenditures at $1,684,495. The school informed U.S. News the corrected value for its fiscal year 2016 NIH grants was $0. ...

The University of South Florida's College of Nursing originally reported its fiscal year 2016 NIH grants and expenditures at $15,991,202. The school informed U.S. News the corrected value for its fiscal year 2016 NIH grants was $1,591,202. ...

Sam Houston State University's College of Education originally reported its fiscal year 2016 research expenditures conducted at the education school at $5.6 million. The school recently told U.S. News the corrected value for its 2016 research expenditures was $271,913

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Management professor admits to falsification, resigns ---
https://retractionwatch.com/2018/03/21/marketing-researcher-admits-to-falsification-resigns/#more-63410

Bob Jensen's threads on professors who cheat ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm#ProfessorsWhoPlagiarize

Prosecutors demand 30-year prison term for South Korean President Park Geun-hye in landmark corruption case ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/south-korean-president-park-geun-hye-corruption-case-2018-2

From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on March 20, 2018

SEC announces its biggest whistleblower awards
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday announced its biggest-ever whistleblower awards, with roughly $83 million combined going to three whistleblowers who helped the regulator reach a $415 million settlement with Bank of America Corp., according to an SEC statement and a lawyer representing the whistleblowers.

South Africa:  Shareholders bring lawsuit against Steinhoff and Deloitte ---
https://www.accountancyage.com/2018/02/02/shareholders-bring-lawsuit-against-steinhoff-and-deloitte/

Bob Jensen's threads on troubles at Deloitte ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm

Universities Fabricating Data to Improve Media Rankings ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/01/rankings-scandal-unfolds-at-temple-business-school.html

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Miley Cyrus is facing a $300 million copyright infringement lawsuit over her hit song 'We Can't Stop' ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/miley-cyrus-300-million-copyright-infringement-lawsuit-song-we-cant-stop-2018-3

Scam Warning from a Chronicle of Higher Education Newsletter on March 13, 2018

We’ve written frequently about predatory journals — how they snare naïve young scholars, how they make money off those eager to be published for tenure, how they provide no peer review or editing, and how they pretend to be prestigious by adopting names very similar to those of genuine top journals, or by naming as their editors and board members real scholars who know nothing about how they are being used. Now there’s apparently a related scam afoot. How would you like to be the commencement speaker this spring at Harvard University? And how much would you be willing to pay for the distinction?

A community-college trustee in Arizona who’s an avid reader of the Briefing received such a solicitation recently, and he thoughtfully passed it on to us. “Harvard University is a huge fan of your work — and the way you are so impressive at that thing you do,” according to the email. After he spoke to Harvard graduates “about any topic,” the email said, he would receive an honorary degree. There was just one snag, it said. “We need to waive your no prior connection” with Harvard, and that would cost a cool $3,000, payable by Western Union to an address in St. Louis. The email was signed “Robinson Crusoe.”

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

High School Diploma Mills
The D.C. Public School Attendance Scandal: Where's the Outrage?
https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/02/08/the-dc-public-school-attendance-scandal-wheres.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2&M=58374719&U=2290378
FBI Investigating D.D. Public Schools ---
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2018/02/fbi_and_us_dept_of_ed_investigate_dc_schools.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2&M=58374719&U=2290378

Lisa Marie Presley is suing her former business manager for the loss of almost all her $100 million inheritance ---
https://www.yahoo.com/news/lisa-marie-presley-sues-business-202440386.html
He ain't nuthin' but a hound dog!

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

The Atlantic:  The Most Expensive Comment in Internet History ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/hogan-thiel-gawker-trial/554132/

SEC Settlement with Elizabeth Holmes:  Blood, Fraud and Money Led to Theranos CEO's Fall From Grace ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-14/theranos-ceo-holmes-accused-of-fraud-by-sec-jeraxw6a?cmpid=BBD031418_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=180314&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

50 Cent reportedly told the bankruptcy court that he never owned bitcoin, contrary to a report that he made $8 million in crypto ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/50-cent-told-bankruptcy-court-he-has-never-owned-bitcoin-2018-2

Time Magazine:  250 People Were Just Charged With Scamming Seniors Out of $500 Million ---
http://time.com/money/5173441/elder-fraud-justice-department-charges/?utm_source=time.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-brief&utm_content=2018022413pm&xid=newsletter-brief

Criminals, take note. If you target older Americans, U.S. law enforcement officials are coming after you.

The Justice Department on Thursday spearheaded the largest coordinated sweep of elder fraud cases in U.S. history. The numbers in this action are astonishing: law enforcement officials in all 50 states went after over 250 people around the globe for defrauding over a million older Americans out of $500 million.

“Today’s actions send a clear message: we will hold perpetrators of elder fraud schemes accountable wherever they are,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “When criminals steal the hard-earned life savings of older Americans, we will respond with all the tools at the Department’s disposal.”

Law enforcement issued criminal, civil, and forfeiture actions against the operators behind a wide range of alleged scams, including IRS fraud, mass-mailings that announce recipients won the lottery, and telephone calls that trick seniors into believing their grandchildren are in trouble and need money.

As part of the sweep against fake lottery mailings, enforcement agencies coordinated strikes against 43 mass-mailing operators—searching premises in 14 locations, including Law Vegas and Florida. They also coordinated with Canadian authorities to execute another 20 warrants. Meanwhile, postal inspectors around the country executed search warrants on 12 locations that some of these same operators used to run their alleged scams.

“The defendants targeted elderly and vulnerable consumers both in the United States and abroad,” said Richard Donoghue, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “They sold false promises of life-changing prizes that never came true.”

Millions of older Americans fall victim to fraud every year. One study published in July in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that more than 5% of the elderly experience some sort of financial fraud or scam every year. Perhaps more alarmingly, a survey in New York State found that only 1 in 44 cases of elder financial abuse is reported.

Continued in article

San Antonio Accountant enters guilty plea for wire fraud, tax evasion ---
http://www.kristv.com/story/37627170/accountant-enters-guilty-plea-for-wire-fraud-tax-evasion

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Justice Dept. charges 36 alleged scammers for $530 million cyber-fraud scheme ---
http://www.zdnet.com/article/justice-department-indictment-february-cybercrime-ring/

Prosecutors said the case is "one of the largest cyber fraud enterprise prosecutions ever undertaken" by the Justice Department.

The Justice Department has charged 36 individuals with connections to a cyber-fraud ring that claimed more than $530 million in stolen funds in its seven-year history.

The group, known as the Infraud Organization, were charged with nine counts, including conspiracy to racketeer, wire fraud, and computer crimes.

The group acquired, sold, and disseminated stolen identities, compromised credit and debit cards, and other financial and personal information.

An indictment filed in Las Vegas detailing the charges was unsealed Wednesday, said the group's alleged administrator and founder, Svyatoslav Bondarenko, who created the forum on the dark web in 2010. The indictment said the founder billed the forum as the "premier destination for carding, and to 18 direct traffic and potential purchasers to the automated vending sites of its members, which serve as online instruments that traffic in stolen means of identification, personally-identifying information, stolen financial and banking information, and other illicit goods."

Prosecutors said that the Bondarenko, a Ukrainian national, dropped off the site's radar in 2015

Continued in article

Harvard:  CEO Pay is Even More Outrageous Than It Seems
https://hbr.org/video/5728073095001/ceo-pay-is-even-more-outrageous-than-it-seems

"The Pay-for-Performance Myth,"  By Eric Chemi and Ariana Giorgi, Bloomberg Businessweek, July 22, 2014 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-22/for-ceos-correlation-between-pay-and-stock-performance-is-pretty-random?campaign_id=DN072214

Aside from outrageous compensation levels of top executives, my biggest gripe is how executives are paid outrageous salaries and golden parachutes even when they fail

Cryptocurrency --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency

Multisignature --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multisignature

From a MIT newsletter on February 1, 2018
The plunder of more than $500 million worth of digital coins from the Japanese cryptocurrency

The plunder of more than $500 million worth of digital coins from the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck last week has added to a growing perception that cryptocurrencies are particularly vulnerable to hackers.

It’s an expensive reminder that like many things in the cryptocurrency world, security technologies—and the norms, best practices, and rules for using them—are still emerging. Not least because of its enormous size, the Coincheck hack could go down as a seminal moment in that process.

First, hackers laid bare the fact that Coincheck had opted not to implement some basic security measures. The company’s executives told news reporters that the stolen coins had been stored in an internet-connected “hot” wallet. It’s far more secure to keep funds offline, in “cold” storage—often hardware specially designed for the task. Many exchanges already claim in their marketing material that they hold the vast majority of their users’ funds offline. Going forward, this will presumably become standard practice.

With that taken care of, there’s a more weighty question on the table. Every public cryptocurrency address is associated with a private key; without it, money can’t be moved from that address. If someone does acquire your private key, though, they can send your money away. That’s what happened in the Coincheck heist. So, how do we make the private cryptographic keys owners need to access their coins more secure?

One answer, known as a multisignature address, is conceptually simple: a “multisig” requires more than one cryptographic key in order execute a transaction. It’s a bit like the multi-factor authentication process you may use to access your email account. Business partners can use multisig technology to, for example, create a wallet that requires each of them to sign off on transactions. That would make it substantially more difficult for hackers to access funds.

Of course, multisig is not a silver bullet. In 2016, for example, hackers defeated a multisig system to steal $65 million from Bitfinex, one of the world’s largest exchanges. How exactly the perpetrators managed the feat isn’t clear, but it’s possible there was a flaw in the specific implementation.

Should financial regulators require exchanges to use multisig technology to secure any funds they keep in a hot wallet? Japanese officials are conducting an emergency review of the security of the country’s exchanges, and that might be a measure they consider.

Jensen Comment
A billion here, a billion there --- pretty soon were talking about real money! These cryptocurrency scams boggle my mind.
I'm glad I'm not an accountant assigned to investigate/audit cryptocurrency frauds.

Jensen Comment
There are other happenings with less money involved such as giving a $50,000 annual scholarship to XYZ Corporate CEO's child when XYZ makes a corporate gift to the university. In effect shareholders of XYZ are indirectly paying for a non-taxable fringe benefit for the CEO, a fringe benefit that is not even reported as compensation for the CPO.

Southern Illinois U. President Orders Investigations Into Hiring of Chancellor’s Kin ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Southern-Illinois-U-President/242416?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=d938712858474ff2849e9c0a9bf959db&elq=0515db7ba933405d9a0b43dbf66fd755&elqaid=17702&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7796

Jensen Comment
Be fair, the Chancellor's daughter and son-in-law were uniquely qualified for their jobs --- they had connections in high places.

Phony Tax Refund
Received a fake Treasury check in the mail today with no letter or anything to indicate as to why it was sent. Didn't put my name correctly per the government records (missed a little tidbit I won't mention here). When people cash these checks, the check is returned to whoever sent it per the routing info with your endorsement signature and your account number. Don't fall for it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3625473/posts

Jensen Comment
Purportedly some people are receiving these even before filing their taxes. It's not clear to me how this scam works but if you don't know why you're entitled to the check it's best to not try to cash it.

Remember if you do lose money on this scam that your bank is probably obligated to make good on payments from your account that you did not authorize. But don't take unnecessary chances.

Francine:  FDIC win against PwC could finally force auditors to look for fraud ---
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fdic-win-against-pwc-could-finally-force-auditors-to-look-for-fraud-2018-01-04

Current and past editions of my newsletter called Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Bob Jensen's historic threads on auditing firm (including KPMG) troubles over the years ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud001.htm

Francine:  FDIC win against PwC could finally force auditors to look for fraud ---
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fdic-win-against-pwc-could-finally-force-auditors-to-look-for-fraud-2018-01-04

India wants to force financial statement auditors to detect more frauds
Does India realize how much this could increase the cost of financial statement auditing?
From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on January 11, 2018

India bans PwC from auditing listed firms
India’s market regulator has banned PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s affiliates from auditing listed companies for two years as punishment for their failure to detect a billion-dollar fraud at outsourcer Satyam Computer Services Ltd.

From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on January 4, 2018

Petrobras to pay $2.95 billion to settle U.S. corruption suit
Brazilian state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA said that it would pay one of the highest-value settlements in history to end a class-action lawsuit by U.S. investors who had sought to recoup corruption-related losses.

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Former Columbia U. Financial-Aid Director Is Accused of Taking Hundreds of Thousands in Kickbacks ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Former-Columbia-U/242220?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=c241d9c56ae84c27a3753b3ace51b1c9&elq=f808e08456b74c22b79abf9e9b849875&elqaid=17422&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=7620

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
 http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

Why Blue States are Blue:  Gov. Jerry Brown: Courts Must Let California Slash its Public-Sector Pensions ---
http://reason.com/blog/2018/01/11/gov-jerry-brown-courts-must-let-californ

Jensen Comment
Many of those bloated pensions resulted from various kinds of frauds frauds that are costly to prosecute due to both cleverness of the frauds and frequency of the frauds.

New York Times:  Diane Butrus, a business executive from St. Louis, wandered the streets of Zurich, looking for a bank that would help her keep $1.5 million hidden from America tax collectors ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/01/ny-times-a-swiss-banker-helped-americans-dodge-taxes-was-it-a-crime.html

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
 http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

When I went to see Lady Bird I fully expected to enjoy it. I knew people who had and it was the sort of film, by description, I knew I would like. I did not expect to see a movie that presented academic dishonesty as a forgettable, perhaps even laudable, act.

To be clear, I don’t expect all good films to have a moral compass or message. I won’t be flogging a commentary decrying the lack of just deserts in A Clockwork Orange, or complaining that the Fast and Furious franchise encourages casual misuse of resources.

But Lady Bird is not an amoral film, nor is it a live-action cartoon, fable, or fairy tale. It’s a film praised for its realism, and one that repeatedly states its moral beliefs about interpersonal responsibility — loudly and clearly. Many characters — including Christine, the willful, complex, and lovable protagonist — commit numerous transgressions, all of which are judged and/or forgiven over the course of the movie, with one notable exception. Consider:

• Christine lies about her background to make herself feel less insecure, but is found out and socially punished.
• Her gay boyfriend cheats on her, but she shows her good ethics by not taking vengeance and outing him.
• Another boyfriend lies to her, but we are allowed to safely judge him as a jerk, and Christine is hurt but righteously breaks up with him.
• She "decorates" a nun’s car as a prank, and lies about it and is absolved by the amused, understanding nun.
• She cold-shoulders her best friend to improve her social standing with a rich girl, but realizes this is wrong, regrets it, and is forgiven.
• Christine is cruel to her mother but ultimately grasps her mother’s limitations, and feels remorse for lying to her and judging her harshly.

The film exhibits one example after another of interpersonal offenses and offers retributions or resolutions for each — except when it comes to academic cheating.

And Christine cheats. Quite deliberately. She destroys her math records and then lies about her grades to improve her standing. Then she cheats on an exam to continue improving her grade. And it is clear that she is concerned about grades, anxious to get into a good college, and understands that grades matter. Several scenes show her discussing grades, whether she can get into the college she wants, and so on.

Does being sweet and funny and interesting make cheating OK? Is that what we as faculty members should tell our students?

In short, the cheating is not a trivial act, and she knows it. Yet there is not a single moment in the film in which Christine acknowledges even to herself that it is wrong, or a moment in which she experiences any negative consequence that would suggest that academic dishonesty is, in fact, wrong.

At the end of the movie, she is off to her new life at an exclusive East Coast college, which she has gotten into by cheating, and it seems the new life will give her great insight into herself and her relationship with her mother. So, in fact: Yay cheating! The end.

As an instructor I’m wondering what to say to my students about cheating after seeing this movie.

Some threads in the film seem to suggest that the cheating is justified: We’re shown that Christine is talented and unique, desperate to escape her mother, and that she lacks resources others have. Her rich friend, after discovering that Christine has lied about her background, says she can’t imagine having to do that. The implication that rich people don’t have to lie — but the rest of us might — is clear. There is a suggestion that her older adopted brother got into Berkeley because he was a minority student, so as a white person Christine lacks that advantage. She has needs but not resources, so cheating is a legitimate response.

Or maybe the cheating is excusable because it demonstrates Christine’s ambitiousness. Her peers are content to stay in Sacramento and go to community college, or nearby universities. She wants more from life. She’s willing to go to the wall — i.e., cheat — to get it. So we should respect that. Which doesn’t sound at all like any politicians currently in office.

Perhaps she doesn’t know any better. Which is plausible … I guess? But there’s no suggestion that Christine should have known better, and no indication whatsoever that she has actually done something wrong by cheating.

Maybe the film’s failure to deal with her academic dishonesty is a statement about its very seriousness: It is such a violation that it can’t be rectified. Certainly there is no easy or subtle cinematic method to resolve it and still have Christine experience her happy ending at the college of her choice. A more thoughtful approach would have allowed the viewer to understand that cheating — the one act in the film that dramatically changes Christine’s life — wasn’t beyond judgment in this otherwise quite morally conventional film.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on academic cheating are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Plagiarism.htm