Teen gets caught plagiarizing school essay. Instead of punishing him, his dad taught him a valuable lesson

With the advancement of artificial intelligence, plagiarizing has become easier, but it's still easy to detect. One dad shared on Reddit how he chose not to support his son after the boy plagiarized a major assignment. The dad, u/NotFixingSonsGrade, revealed his decision caused tension between him and his son's mother. He sought advice on whether he was wrong to address his son's misconduct in school.

The dad began by questioning if he did the right thing by letting his son fail a major assignment and telling him he deserved the low grade. He explained that his son, Devin, had plagiarized an entire English essay by copying from Cliffnotes, merely replacing some letters with similar-looking Russian ones. "It wasn’t as if Devin plagiarized without meaning to. My son knew exactly what he was doing," the dad clarified in his post.

Devin's essay bypassed the plagiarism detection software, but his teacher discovered the copied content from Cliffnotes. The dad was informed, and Devin received a zero. "Devin’s grade dropped to a D. Devin asked me to essentially fight with the school to get his grade fixed. I told him no and that he deserved the zero. If you’re struggling with an essay, you reach out and ask for help. You don’t try to cheat your way out," the disappointed father explained.

"Devin’s mom, Emma called me because she just received the physical report card in the mail and saw the D in English. Devin hadn’t told his mom about what happened and it’s too late to challenge the zero now since grades have already been finalized," the dad mentioned. Emma questioned Devin's dad about why he refused to challenge the school and teacher who gave him a low grade. The dad explained that he wanted this to be a lesson for Devin, who was all set to graduate school in a couple of years. 

"Emma argued that a D would seriously hurt Devin’s university prospects. She said she doesn’t condone what Devin did and would have been in agreement with a home punishment such as grounding Devin. But she said that I was a terrible parent for making our son experience a punishment that she says can seriously impact his future. Unless Devin was applying to an Ivy League (which he has not had any interest in) then I doubt one D will destroy his university prospects. I’m struggling to understand Emma’s perspective and need more opinions," the post concluded. The Reddit community supported the dad's actions and assured him that whatever he did was right for the sake of his son's better future.

u/Willing-Helicopter26 quipped, "This is a natural consequence of Devin's actions. Parents fighting to overturn rightfully assigned bad grades is one of the reasons that teachers are struggling and only leads to entitled kids thinking they don't have to answer for poor behavior." u/CanterCircles pointed out, "I mean, what were you supposed to do? He plagiarized and the teacher can very easily prove it. Arguing with the teacher or admin would be pointless, he got what he earned and it wouldn't change." u/fomaaaaa commented, "How would you even fight a zero in this case? He very clearly and knowingly plagiarized plus he took actions specifically designed to get around being caught. There’s no grounds to stand on. I’d love to know what Emma would’ve said to try to get the grade changed."