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First Lady Melania Trump got a pass for plagiarizing former First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech because a staffer took the blame. But college students accused of plagiarism seldom get a pass. Graduate students, college students, high school students, professors and journalists all get accused of plagiarism. Unlike the First Lady they lack any staffers to blame, so they suffer the consequences. The consequences can be severe. At many schools, plagiarism results in sanctions ranging from an “F” on a paper to expulsion. Mid-range sanctions may include failing the course and receiving notations on the student’s transcript. Such notations range from temporary ones to permanent ones and can follow a student when they seek transfer, graduate school admission, security clearances and employment. Even worse, applications of all types often ask if the applicant has ever merely been the subject of or accused of any academic honor code violation. For professional academics…

Jeff Sessions, the new U.S. attorney general under President Donald Trump, is no stranger to controversy. Sessions, who served as a U.S. senator for Alabama until the Senate confirmed him by a vote of 52-47, was confirmed on the first day of Black History Month. It’s a point of irony for some people who questioned his ability to run the U.S. Justice Department fairly and without bias after comments supporting the KKK, except for the hate group’s use of marijuana. In fact, his reportedly racist comments stopped him from being appointed as a federal judge in 1986. Teen Vogue recently talked with Shan Wu, a former federal prosecutor who worked for the same agency that Sessions is now overseeing, about the heavy-duty responsibilities that America’s newest attorney general is facing. Wu, who also served as an adviser to former Attorney General Janet Reno, explained that the U.S. Justice Department has…