A Baltimore County athletic director made headlines last month after he allegedly used artificial intelligence to make it sound like t...
A Baltimore County athletic director made headlines last month after he allegedly used artificial intelligence to make it sound like the school’s principal made racist and anti-Semitic comments. Even before that alleged misconduct, however, the 31-year-old AD made it a habit to lie on job applications before he was hired at multiple schools across the country, according to an investigation by The Baltimore Banner.
Dazhon Darien, Pikesville High School’s former athletic director, used two different names to fill out four job applications, which he filled with around 29 false claims, The Baltimore Banner reported. In Darien’s two resumes that he submitted to Baltimore County Schools, he made 16 false claims, but the man was hired after the school system said it conducted a background check and checked fingerprints and references.
“This is a clear case of an individual willing to fabricate anything — including his own qualifications — and to go considerable lengths to do so,” County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr. said in a statement. “This incident is concerning and reinforces the need for all public organizations to take a comprehensive look into hiring practices to ensure all appropriate steps are being taken to prevent this type of application fraud.”
Darien was fired after just three months at Colorado Mesa University in 2018. Then, when applying for a position in Texas, Darien appeared to exaggerate his credentials, claiming he worked “the last 8 years in higher education as an administrator in student affairs,” and served “in the positions of Director of Student Life and Dean of Students,” but there was no evidence that he held those positions for that length of time.
Darien was hired by Pikesville High School last fall despite not obtaining a Maryland teaching certificate, which is required for all public school teachers, according to the Baltimore Banner. Darien joined the Pikesville High staff after working for a few weeks as a social studies teacher at Randallstown High School, which is also in Baltimore County, in the spring of 2023.
The athletic director was being investigated for mishandling school funds when he allegedly used AI to create a fake recording of Pikesville High principal Eric Eiswert “spewing racial and anti-Semitic insults about staff and students,” the Daily Mail reported. The recording appeared to capture Eiswert, who is white, saying “ungrateful black kids … can’t test their way out of a paper bag,” adding, “And if I have to get one more complaint from one more Jew in this community, I’m going to join the other side.”
The fake recording was posted to social media where many students at the school heard it and became outraged as the media swarmed to cover what looked like a scandal covered in racism. Darien’s alleged deception was found out after the recording was analyzed by experts who said that AI had been used to create a voice mimicking Eiswert. Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough said his department worked with the FBI and forensic experts from the University of California at Berkeley to look into the recording.
“Dazhon Darien, the school’s athletic director, produced the recording to retaliate against Principal Eiswert, who had initiated a probe into the mishandling of school funds,” McCullough said.
Darien was arrested and charged with stalking, disruption of school operations, and retaliation against a witness, according to ABC 13.
As far as the troubling details surrounding Darien’s hiring, officials are pushing for the school district to review its practices. Ryan Coleman, president of the Randallstown NAACP, said, “The next question is, did they miss anything else? Is there anything in his background that says he shouldn’t be around children?” He added that the situation worries him about the role models children have in the community’s schools, but said he is optimistic that Superintendent Myriam Rogers will “right the ship,” The Baltimore Banner reported.
Baltimore schools are also facing staggering rates of failing grades as none of the students at 40% of its high schools were proficient on the state math exam last spring.
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