Affirmative Action in the Heartland

The Des Moines Public School board considered Ian Andre Roberts the Second Coming, but he was far from holy. 

In May 2023, the board voted unanimously to make him the district’s new superintendent. “Dr. Roberts was chosen through a comprehensive national search based on the leadership profile prepared by the Board,” said the board’s news release. “When considering candidates the Board was looking for educational experience, academic excellence and a passion for innovation and inspiration, and we found those qualities and more in Dr. Roberts,” said board chair Teree Caldwell-Johnson. 

Dr. Roberts’ focus on creating equitable experiences for students to thrive, paired with his commitment to continuous improvement, creates an exciting opportunity for our students, staff and community.

The news release went on to cite his “numerous books and publications about educational topics including leadership, empathy, and cultural responsiveness. He is passionate about instructional excellence, diversity, equity, inclusion, and innovation in education.” The release also cited the degrees Roberts had obtained, his work history, and his family background. 

Unfortunately for the school board, much of what was cited about Roberts came from his resume, which later proved to be riddled with discrepancies, exaggerations, and fraudulent claims. It seems that a proper vetting of Roberts did not occur. Even a perfunctory investigation of him would have revealed that he was not even a legal resident of the United States. 

From the board’s own language and the lavish praise they heaped upon Roberts, I suspect the board members were irrationally enthusiastic about him not only because he used all the politically correct words and phrases in his interview and checked all the right boxes in his submissions to the board—but because he is black. Moreover, he was not only black but a black immigrant from Guyana. After “a comprehensive national search,” the school board had found a black immigrant to manage Iowa’s largest school district, which included five high schools, 12 middle schools, and 39 elementary schools, with a total enrollment of 31,000 students. The board members could virtue signal to their heart’s content. 

Amid great fanfare, Roberts assumed his position as superintendent on July 1, 2023. He became a popular figure, known for his broad smile, flashy—bordering on pimp compatible—dress, and gladhanding. He talked a good game (some would say he was a bullshit artist) and didn’t seem to do much concrete work. His base salary was $286,000 a year. Life was good. 

On the morning of Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE, stopped Roberts while he was driving his district-issued car in “a targeted enforcement operation.” Roberts identified himself but then stomped on the accelerator and sped off. ICE officers found the car abandoned on the side of the road and soon captured Roberts hiding in the brush a couple hundred yards away. The officers found a loaded gun, a large knife, and $3,000 in cash in Roberts’ car. 

Roberts was soon put in the custody of the U.S. Marshals and charged with being illegally in the United States and being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm. More charges would follow. 

On the morning of Monday, Sept. 29, the Party for Socialism and Liberation Iowa gathered in front of the Neal Smith Federal Building in Des Moines to protest Roberts’ arrest. The local television news showed about 50 people holding up signs with anti-ICE slogans and chanting “No one is illegal” and “Free Dr. Roberts.”

The next morning, 300 high school students walked out of their classes at the start of the school day to protest the arrest of Roberts. The protest received considerable media attention, though the number of students walking out represented fewer than 1 percent of the district’s students. 

Later in the day, about 100 Des Moines residents and student protestors gathered at the Iowa State Capitol, carrying signs reading “No one is illegal on stolen land”; “Abolish ICE”; and “Undocumented hands feed you.”

One of the protest’s student organizers demanded the Des Moines Police Department refuse “mutual aid requests” from ICE and that the school board prohibit ICE from entering school property. Another student organizer demanded that school officials protect “undocumented” students.

The protests failed to gain traction, as day by day more damning information came out about Roberts. On Oct. 3, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released Roberts’ rap sheet, which included criminal possession of narcotics with intent to sell, criminal possession of a forgery instrument, and possession of a forged instrument, all in 1996 in New York. In 1998, it was unauthorized use of a vehicle in New York and in 2012 it was reckless driving, unsafe operation, and speeding in Maryland. In 2020, there were two instances of criminal possession of a weapon. In 2022, it was unlawful possession of a loaded firearm in Pennsylvania.

I knew a legal resident alien who, back in the early 1960s, was fond of driving sports cars, and driving them fast. He started accumulating speeding tickets and, although he was gainfully employed, owned a home, had an American-born wife and children, and had an otherwise squeaky-clean record, he was threatened with deportation. How could illegal-alien Roberts have remained in the United States?

According to the DHS, Roberts entered the United States at JFK International in New York from his native Guyana in June 1994 on a B-2 nonimmigrant visa as a “visitor for pleasure.” He was back in Guyana for a short period but evidently had no problem reentering the U.S. in time for his 1996 narcotics bust. He returned to Guyana for an extended stay but came back to the U.S. in March 1999 at San Francisco International as an F-1 student visa holder. He was then in and out of the U.S. several times during the next several months, all on his student visa, which would expire in March 2004.

In February 2000, Roberts filed an application for employment authorization, which was granted for 12 months beginning in April. In September 2000, he flew out of and into the U.S. through JFK. In May 2001, he filed a green card application but it was rejected. In May 2018, he once more filed for a green card but again was rejected. He tried for a green card yet again in June but was turned down for a third time.

In July 2018, he filed for employment authorization and was approved for a 12-month period beginning in December. He also filed again for a green card, but may have set a record when he was rejected for a fourth time. 

Since his employment authorization was expiring in December 2019, he filed again in November and was granted another 12-month approval. It’s unclear how he was being approved for work, as he had been an illegal alien since his student visa expired in 2004—other than him lying on his applications and submitting fraudulent documents. 

Finally, in October 2020 Roberts was ordered to appear before an immigration judge. He failed to appear. In May 2024, an immigration judge ordered Roberts removed in absentia. After years of playing games with U.S. immigration, Roberts evidently understood the removal order meant the government was now closing in and he had a lawyer file a motion to reopen his case. The motion was denied in April 2025, and ICE took him into custody in September. 

The revelations about Roberts left the Des Moines school boardmembers with egg on their faces. How could they have hired an illegal alien with a criminal past as superintendent? They claim the fault lies with JG Consulting, the firm they hired to search for and vet potential candidates. The school board has lawyered up and so, too, has JG Consulting. Attorneys on both sides have released information to the press intended to support their clients. There are good arguments for each side and each side appears to be adamant they are in the right. It will probably be left to a jury to decide. 

After reading all the arguments, though, it certainly seems the school board failed to ask several elemental questions about Roberts in the hiring process. The school board had two resumes from Roberts. On the first one Roberts submitted, he said he had a doctorate from Morgan State University, a historically black school in Baltimore. He had been going by “Dr. Roberts” for several years. On an updated resume, he also said he had doctorate but added the notation “ABD,” short for All But Dissertation. This meant he had completed all the course work and had passed all the exams, but hadn’t finished his doctoral dissertation.

This should have become a cynosure of attention for the school board and led to the members asking why he had claimed to have a doctorate on his first resume. Moreover, since he didn’t have the doctorate in hand, that should have led to questions about the status of his dissertation, including an expected completion date, and the members of his doctoral committee at Morgan State. Then, too, didn’t the school board notice that he said he attended Morgan State from 2002 to 2007? It had been 16 years since he was enrolled at the school, and he still had not completed a doctoral dissertation?

Evidently, the school board asked none of these questions. In most cases, that would seem strange, even incredible. In this context, though, I suspect the school board, eager to hire a black superintendent, was blind to what should have been red flags. “People were excited about him,” Laura Weeldreyer told The Des Moines Register. A former deputy chief of staff for the district, Weeldreyer added, “He was a shiny, new, go-getter principal that everybody expected great things from. He was very much larger than life.” 

In an attempt to prevent such blindness in the future, only a couple of weeks after Roberts’ arrest, the governor of Iowa, Republican Kim Reynolds, issued an executive order requiring all state agencies, before hiring workers or issuing occupational or professional licenses, to verify employment eligibility and U.S. citizenship or immigration status.

To codify Gov. Reynolds’ EO, Senate Study Bill 3015 was introduced in the Iowa State Senate. The bill establishes employment and eligibility standards that must be met by the Board of Educational Examiners, school districts, accredited nonpublic schools, and charter schools. Requirements include a criminal background investigation by the Department of Public Safety and evidence of lawful presence and work authorization in the United States. Iowa’s new common-sense employment requirements should be adopted nationwide.

After the DHS released Roberts’ long rap sheet, reporters for The Des Moines Register, New York Post, and The New York Times began scrutinizing the two resumes he submitted to the school board, and investigating his work history and relationships with former colleagues and others. In addition to his falsely claiming he was a U.S. citizen and had a doctorate from Morgan State, it was revealed that his claims of a master’s degree from Georgetown University, an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the completion of an education program at Harvard were also fabrications. At least, when he fabricated his educational accomplishments, he had the good taste to choose Georgetown, MIT, and Harvard. No piker, this Ian Roberts. 

He actually did have an undergraduate degree from Coppin State College in Baltimore as he claimed on his resume. Now known as Coppin State University, it is a historically black school. It was solely a teachers college until 1963, not conferring its first Bachelor of Arts degree until 1967. Coppin had 1,900 undergraduates and 300 graduate students enrolled in 2024-2025. It has a four-year graduation rate of 10 percent and U.S. News in its 2026 “Best Colleges” report ranks Coppin 150 out of 164 colleges in the “regional universities north” category. Probably because it still emphasizes its nursing and teaching programs, it has a female to male ratio of 75-25. 

I suspect that was to Roberts’ liking. As reported in the New York Post, when Roberts was superintendent of the 10-school Millcreek Township school district in suburban Erie, Pennsylvania, the district paid more than $400,000 in sex discrimination lawsuits. The lawsuits claimed that Roberts promoted less-qualified women over more deserving men. “Town gossip,” said the Post, “claimed Roberts hightailed out of Millcreek after he was caught having sex with a female co-worker on school property.”

Former Millcreek colleagues told the  Post Roberts was a sketchy figure and pathological liar. They thought he was hired by the school district “because of his diversity, equity and inclusion bona fides.” Once on the job, said the colleagues, he did little work—other than chasing women. “He was a player,” said an unnamed colleague. 

Melody Ellington followed Roberts to Millcreek after working with him for five years in St. Louis schools. She lasted one year at Millcreek before resigning and threatening to sue the district for “constructive discharge,” a Department of Labor term meaning a resignation is involuntary resulting from a hostile or intolerable work environment. Ellington named Roberts as the problem. She accepted a $250,000 settlement.

Earlier, when he was principal at Anacostia High School in Washington, D.C., he impregnated a woman he was dating. She was initially impressed with him. He was a principal, dressed in expensive suits, and had been an Olympic athlete. (He actually was an Olympian. He represented Guyana in the 800-meter run at the 2000 Games in Sydney. He finished next to last in the first round of heats and didn’t advance.) 

Her infatuation with him soon began to ebb. He became more and more distant and things he said didn’t add up. According to the Des Moines Register, she said after her daughter was born she received a message from the mother of another one of Roberts’ children, telling her that Roberts had at least three other children, two of them from a marriage in the early 2000s. Ellington said he had earlier claimed he had never been married and had no children. He also said he grew up in New York City and gave his age as several years younger than he actually was.

“He really believes some of the stuff,” she told the Register. “That’s the only way you can get away with being that crazy. You live in your own world. He’s delusional.” 

She may be right, but I find it difficult to conclude he’s anything other than a narcissistic con man. He seems to have no compunction about lying, falsifying records, fathering children out of wedlock, and deceiving everyone he meets. 

In his first court appearance, Roberts pleaded not guilty to all charges. His lawyer may have convinced him that with all the evidence against him, he wouldn’t be able to con the court, and the attorney negotiated a plea deal. On Jan. 22, 2026, Roberts pleaded guilty to falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen on a federal form and illegally possessing firearms (in addition to the gun found in his car, three more guns were found when his home was searched).

Roberts is scheduled to be sentenced on May 29 and faces a possible 15 years in prison on the firearms charge and five years for the false citizenship claim. He can expect immediate deportation upon his release. 

Meanwhile, Ian Roberts sits in the Polk County jail in Iowa, claiming on his LinkedIn page, according to The Des Moines Register, “that another inmate cried when Roberts arrived, overwhelmed by the hope the inmate felt from simply seeing the ex-superintendent.” Roberts also claimed he was teaching taekwondo to inmates. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said there are no reports of Roberts doing so. Behind bars or not, it seems Roberts is still working his con game. 

https://chroniclesmagazine.org/columns/sins-of-omission/affirmative-action-in-the-heartland