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The Dean’s December

It's April, but still. 

“I misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to M.I.T. 28 years ago and did not have the courage to correct my résumé when I applied for my current job or at any time since,” Ms. Jones said in a statement posted on the institute’s Web site. “I am deeply sorry for this and for disappointing so many in the M.I.T. community and beyond who supported me, believed in me, and who have given me extraordinary opportunities.”

Actually, I think Marilee Jones has her follow-up book to the one she's hawking around the country now, Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond. I'd call it: Overrated: How Ingenuity, Deceit and Pragmatism Beat a College Degree.

What's undisclosed in the Times piece is how Jones was suddenly made to confess her three-decade lie. Was she found out, blackmailed or just genuinely contrite, especially in the face of ill-gotten gains about how not to fudge a resume for academic advancement?

I'm torn on cases like these. A woman has a moral lapse in her youth and must now undo a lifetime of what looks to be admirable accomplishment. If the M.I.T. administration weren't worried about PR fallout or rescinded alumni donations, it might have allowed Jones to retain her position which, after all, she got by her performance in previous ones.

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