Roy Exum
The University of Tennessee, where gender-free pronouns, no Christmas parties, and wine enemas have made all of us nervous in recent years, has either hit a new high or fallen to a new low. This all depends on what an important investigation will unearth this week in the strange and foreboding case of who exactly is Sarah Jackson.
Tennessee’s much-maligned Office of Equity and Diversity will take up the matter of who Sarah Jackson is in what has to be one of the all-time examples of a total dolt masquerading as a geology professor. There is certainly little question William Deane’s teaching assistant allegedly has rocks in her head.
Last week UT freshman Keaton Wahlbon, who is pursuing a degree in economics, was taking an exam in his earth science lab when he came upon the first question on the quiz. He did not know the answer. So, like students have done since the first school bell ever rang, our obviously naïve freshman gave it his best college try as he actually followed the professor’s written instructions.
The first question posed on the exam actually read, “What is your lab instructor’s name? (If you don’t remember make something good up).”
Freshman Wahlbon reached up into thin air, wrote down the innocuous name, “Sarah Jackson” and Professor Deane wound up giving the kid a “zero.” Not only that, whoever graded the professor’s test wrote “inappropriate” in red ink. What! So Wahlbon goes and talks to his TA (teacher’s aide?) and she rocks his world, so to speak, telling him Sarah Jackson is actually a porn star. Here’s the email he then sent to Prof. Deane:
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“I wanted to talk to you about a grade I received on a lab quiz. I got a 0 on my geology lab quiz because we had to put our instructor's name. A bunch of us didn’t know so I literally put down a very common girl name and a common name. So I put down Sarah Jackson. Turns out Sarah Jackson is a porn star so I got a 0 for the whole quiz… I had no idea that was the case and had zero intention of trying to be funny or rude. I talked to my TA about it and she said she won’t change the grade. It won’t affect my grade it’s just the principle of the whole thing. I shouldn’t get a 0 for a coincidence like that. I even googled “Sarah Jackson” and nothing like that came up so she had to do some digging or something. I really just think that is totally unfair. If you’d like me to come in and talk about it I am free today until my 3:35 class. Thanks.”
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According to the howmanyofme.com website, out of 323,539,372 of us in the United States, there are 812,790 named “Sarah” and 798,917 people with “Jackson” as their last name. It is reported there are 2,029 who are alive today who have the full name of “Sarah Jackson.” Incidentally, that was the name of Andrew Jackson’s daughter-in-law when she was the de facto “First Lady” of the White House in 1829, this after Ol’ Hickory’s wife had died.
Regardless, it wasn’t long before the student Wahlbon heard from Prof. Deane, of which there are 91 persons in the United States named “William Deane,” which with great irony I suspect is the real number of people who have ever heard of a porn star named Sarah Jackson. Really, how does somebody know that kind of stuff? Here is his email reply:
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“Keaton: I have no way of determining your intention. I can only consider the result. The result is that you gave the name of Sarah Jackson, who is a lingerie and nude model. That result meets the Title IX definition of sexual harassment. The grade of zero stands and will not be changed. Bill Deane.”
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There are 181,182 people in the United States with the first name of “Bill” and 7,368 with the last name “Deane.” Combine the two names and there are reportedly only 4 people with the name, “Bill Deane,” thank the Lord above.
Curious, I went to Wikipedia with “Sarah Jackson” and came up with an artist in Canada. I went to Bing and found a piccolo player with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. If you go to WhitePages.com, there are two exacts and 192 “possibles” in just Chattanooga, Tenn, alone. Honestly, you can find “Sarah Jackson” everywhere.
You have to search Google to find a dark-haired “Sarah Jackson” from Canada who is wearing bathing suits and bras in ads but with persistent research – and deep-digging like earth science requires -- you can do a search for “Sarah Jackson Porn” and finally find a blond-haired “Sarah Jackson” from New York who did several X-rated tapes back in 2010. The bathing-suit model and the adult actress are two different “Sarah Jacksons.”
With the investigation by UT’s Office of Equity and Diversity looming, there is one thing that is certain. Out of 323,539,372 Americans, there are 1,618 with the first name “Keaton” and less than 120 with the last name “Wahlbon.” But when it comes to “Keaton Wahlbon” there is exactly one in the entire United States.
He’s the UT freshman I’m pulling for this week.
royexum@aol.com