So the other night I went to a presentation by Dr. Kenny Jones, who spoke to all of the Panhellenic women at Penn State. It was very inspirational; he is black and is homosexual, and he spoke about his experience in Greek life at Jackson State (an HBCU), and how badly he was hazed for the way he is by his fraternity brothers of Phi Beta Sigma.
The speech was funny, yet devastating, and I left feeling all sorts of emotions after listening to how he was beat, thrown, and pretty much tortured in a dark, dirty, and dingy basement. Last year, I remember asking a good friend of mine in a fraternity if they would ever let a homosexual into their frat, and he said no. I thought maybe after hearing his story he would change his mind; it was that much of a moving speech.
Jones provided everyone with a Google number to text if they had questions during or after the speech in which he would respond to. After his speech, I texted the number to applaud him for his endurance, his strength, and to tell him that it is people like him who we need more of in this world.
Sadly, as it turns out “Dr.” Kenny Jones was lying. About everything.
First of all, he never received his PhD from Morgan State (even though it says that he did on his LinkedIn, his public resume, and his biography on Penn’s website–the place he works). But here’s the best one and it literally cracks me up: he was never affiliated with that fraternity chapter. Onward State wrote an article about him, his background, and story, after which Jones contacted them requesting to remove the article from their website due to “inaccuracies” and issues with his employer at Penn.
When asked to describe the inaccuracies, he asked Onward State to remove any reference to his PhD at Morgan State University and his Phi Beta Sigma fraternity affiliation, and to remove his name with “Dr.” preceding it.
Onward State received correspondence from someone with intimate knowledge of Jones’ academic background confirming that he never received his PhD. They also received an email from the administrator of member records for the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, claiming that there is no record of Jones ever being a candidate for membership.
You can read that full redaction on Onward State here.
I’m literally so disappointed with the morals of this man. Here he is getting paid to tell this story to Greek Life women and men; this story of how we should accept others and to never be judgmental, and how important it is to have the right alignment of values. Meanwhile this guy is really just blowing hot air because he made his entire story questionable.
I’m just disturbed that people like this walk amongst me. A**hole.
