Claudine Gay has resigned her Harvard presidency following extensive allegations of academic impropriety. She and her enormous glasses of racial understanding must return to the faculty, where they will lurk for years to come like a very expensive bad smell
I think a very considerable number of these people are extremely unhappy guys obsessed with Magical Jews to excuse their own failures. Imagine considering oneself such losers who somehow let an infinitesimally small minority of human beings take over everything!
Why do you think all the dissidents are now on their own substacks?
Sorry, but the "Jews" control the media.
Two things:
1) The Balfour Declaration - an illegal and fraudulent document allowing a third party of no political agency (other than land) to have access to lands already occupied by the original Semites: the Palestinians.
2) The legal oppression of criticism of Jews and/or Holohoax in 17 countries, where criticism can lead to prison time.
Please tell me why these two topics cannot be included in the discussion of the Jewish Lobby in U$A?
some political commentators argue that this incident is about how 'Zionists' are reasserting control over Diversity in American academia and believe I am being deliberately disingenuous in celebrating the loss it represents for the Diversity, Inclusion and Equity charlatans.
Jewish representation at America's "elite" universities in the student body and faculty is drastically reduced from a few decades ago. So that ain't it. DEI is stupid, regressive, and inhumane, imposing a system of arbitrary prejudice onto what was previously a relatively meritocratic environment. The irony of course is that the "anti-racist" dipshits on the Left are blaming the Jews because all racism is bad except the racism directed at whoever is pissing off the Commies at the moment. Fucktards.
Well, in fact Gay was skating to the top despite the fact that many people knew and had pointed out that she was a serial plagiarist..It was only when she failed to support our "Greatest Ally" in its Gaza genocide that she got in trouble...
Quite a reasonable essay, as usual. DEI somewhat like 'woke' is becoming untenable as we, the public, become aware of how foolish it becomes in practice. Various factions seem to have found a home in academia to create an agenda that has become anti-democratic in favor of some dream society proven fatal whenever tried. Beyond Rufo we are tired of useless pontification about impractical policies that never address real issues. Many of these "learned scholars" are frauds and need to be challenged. Finally some losing credibility, thanks.
I still don't get it, but I guess I've never bought into many of the theories of "Zionists" controlling the world. Is the troll army arguing more of the same along that line?
Well, they certainly control the US government, as Bibi has stated several times...Why did Truman recognize Israel in 1948 when the entire State Dept opposed it?
Read ZH comments. Godwins Law variations. 10 comments I to any post, all the ills associated with the article are blamed on Jews, Zionists,Mossad, Israel. No matter what.
Probably a good idea to leave it that way by default, don't think we need conspiracy boomers and their tiresome shizo rants about ((((THEM))) here.
The older this demographic gets the crazier they become, and I don't call them „XY-wing” on purpose, since their worldview isn't complex enough to be deserving of a name. It's just dementia and the media capitalizes on it.
maybe I'll poll subscribers again on whether all of you want the comments permanently limited. i asked at the start of the blog and everyone wanted them open, but I've gotten a bigger readership since then and even the subscriber-only posts tend to have lively discussion.
I think that every Substacker has the right to set access as he will and I also feel very sad when some Substacks to which I am a free subscriber prevent me from commenting.
Myself, I don't mind reading the loony posts. Sometimes we do need a good hearty laugh.
If someone is truly deranged and repeats the same drivel endlessly in a river of comments, it's appropriate to ban them because taking out the trash is sometimes necessary. But that should be according to your own taste in the matter.
My own personal view is, leave it as open as possible. But that's a free speech absolutist speaking and my views might be out of vogue even in this cosy corner of the internet.
On the substance of the thing: I certainly don't think you are being deliberately disingenuous, but I do maintain that Gay's takedown reveals something about the fault lines of power in this here culture war. To wit, if she had voiced reluctance to censor speech that called for the genocide of "cis-gendered, goy, white males", I can't help but think she might still be president of Harvard today.
I don't mean to deny that Gay's demise is largely due to the controversy over her 5 Dec. exchange with Stefanik. (Though I do think it's important that she survived the initial controversy – Harvard stood by her; her ultimate demise really was down to the escalating evidence of plagiarism.)
I guess you could say that I'm a simple man and I will enjoy the rare victories where I can find them. The DEI apparatus at these schools is a truly malign force, I think much worse that it may seem on the outside.
Oh, you have no idea. DEI is and always has been about power at all costs and the people pushing it become psychological addicted to the emotional payoff that it presents. I think it's actually a form of mental illness caused by excessive focus on 'who one is' rather than 'what one does'.
Surprising behaviors similar on both the left and the right in the USA, Trumpism basically being the false opposite of DEI.
Harvard made it clear they were satisfied with Claudine Gay's testimony, even if she almost simultaneously apologised for it - whilst shallow it was suitably non-committal.
The fall was down to poor standards exhibited by a Claudine Gay in the general body of works, the impossibly meagre output and outstanding hypocrisy.
I think it ultimately came down to $$$ being pulled by the billionaire donors, resulting from the 5 Dec debacle. After all, Harvard is run by a body aptly named 'The Corporation'.
Once again the defense of Gay is a steel man, (or is it straw man?). Avoid the merits of the argument and redirect to the tired old racist, existential threat, weaponization tropes.
So academic freedom = you are free to copy others work in order to obtain lucrative and powerful positions? How was academic freedom preserved when faculty were canceled or forced to resign over liking tweets or acknowledging basic biology?
If her ultimate demise was really due to plagiarism, the modern university system would be on the cusp of something far more foundation shaking than Hollywood's MeToo.
The DEI apparatus has resulted in reverse discrimination by nominal corporations despite the shareholders (Blackrock, Vanguard) now slowly backing away from endorsing both DEI and ESG - painfully as they discover lower returns.
Coffee & Covid is an example of a SS where the comment threads are too unwieldy to fully "grok." And eugyppius has some posts with very long comment threads.
I really do miss the "collapse thread" functionality that SS removed some time back. Those left/right or pro-Trump/anti-Trump threads can get very tiresome.
Gresham's Law applies here: bad commenters drive out good. Furthermore, I sometimes suspect that Jim is right: there are office buildings full of paid shills systematically attacking right-wing blogs and forums.
Maybe making the comments subscriber-only could be on a case by case basis, depending on the article? As KHP mentions, sometimes the loony posts can be helpful.
Like SCA, there are some writers I read regularly but can't comment. Sometimes I find this very frustrating, but now at least we have Notes as an outlet :)
Everything on the internet is monitored. It seems once you start to get popular enough that you're on the establishment's radar, the various forms of censorship appear.
I guess it’s the same old. Once you go down the diversity vs merit hire, it follows that there cannot be a sacking for a lack of merit. That becomes an impossibility.
The bigger something gets the more the need for some degree of gatekeeping. As a former part of academia you probably know that^^
And it's not like I want that people be pushed out for disagreement or writing stuff I think is crazy per se, just that with increased size some kind of filtering might become necessary regardless.
Its your blog. But its better to know what the focus of the various factions is, than to get blind sided by it. But before you throw out the baby with the bath water, look at G.Edward Griffins The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve. Its a fascinating look at the history of the US central bank.
There are plenty of "crazies" across the board of all ages. As one of those "boomers" that you deride, and a well educated critical thinker, your comments are about as intentionally insulting as they come. You too will grow older and hopefully, always be as smart as you are today.
Exact. I already specified what subgroup I refer too. I obviously don't mean old people in general or even the boomers in general, just the ones that can't accept that they're too old and thus shouldn't expose themselves in politics anymore. What age that is is if course highly variable, but some cut-off point exists for every person.
Exactly. The Harvard board that united in defense of the kween was no match for an outraged Bill Ackman. Plagiarism is the fig leaf to mask the forces responsible for her (comfortable) demise.
Her plagiarism was a frequent subject of commenters on economics/statistics anonymous (mostly for prudent reasons) online boards but those people were regularly scorned and maligned by faculty and administrators at the Ivies. But Chris Brunet was onto her in April 2022.
'don't think we need conspiracy boomers and their tiresome shizo rants about ((((THEM))) here.'
I find those rants as tiresome as the next person, but it might be an overgeneralization to blame it on boomers with dementia. There are plenty of younger people with the same mindset.
I might be a little sensitive about your remark because tomorrow is my 70th birthday. Nevertheless, I defend your right to your opinion, and only hope you might refine it.
Thanks Tardigrade. I just turned 66 at Christmas. My kids, all in their 20's and 30's have some of the most closed-minded and inane world views. I love my kids, and they're allowed their opinions (however uninformed I find them), but having a rational discussion about nearly anything of consequence or controversy is challenging. My sensitivity to broad brush age related insults can be fairly keen.
Thanks to both of you Sagittarians. I just turned 78 and I take umbrage to all the boomer blame. If it wasn't for us all those snotnoses wouldn't be around. When we went to school there were no participation trophies, we earned our grades by our test results.
To have a president of Harvard engage in activities we would have been failed for only reinforces the stupidity of DEI. You can blame us for the world's ills; it's just too bad we won't be around to see how well you do.
Thanks pnoldguy! As my birthday falls on Dec 23, I assume I'm a Capricorn on the cusp of Sagittarius. Since I've never much followed Astrology, I defer to those who might know better.
This thread has gotten pretty long, so here is the original post:
'Probably a good idea to leave it that way by default, don't think we need conspiracy boomers and their tiresome shizo rants about ((((THEM))) here.
'The older this demographic gets the crazier they become, and I don't call them „XY-wing” on purpose, since their worldview isn't complex enough to be deserving of a name. It's just dementia and the media capitalizes on it.'
The first paragraph definitely refers to a subset. The second paragraph gets a little more vague, and it may be those of us in the middle of "that demographic" are too sensitive about it. Admittedly, at the risk of further normalizing self-victimization. Your point is well taken.
Yeah, I'm right in the middle of that demo (uhhh, to be clear, the age part, not the insane part) and I take no offense whatsoever. Why *anyone* without a thick skin would be taking part in internet discussions is beyond me...
See, now *I* read "XY-wing" as a somewhat badly phrased stand in for "left-wing or right-wing". But I'm a programmer, so I actually do tend to use variable substitution in my actual speech. And I had meant to make a joke that giving folks of the conspiracy mindset two axes (turning it into a graphing math joke) was at least one axis too many. If there's one thing I've learned in thirty years of being in the internet, it's that pure text communication is a *lot* more difficult than people give it credit for, and the last ten years of social media have taught me that it is often the case that people will make the "maximally pessimistic" interpretation of what another person types out. Because all of the nuance of even *hand* written communication (line weight, lean, etc) is missing, let alone facial expression, body language, tone, and all that.
Anyway, there's my blab for the nonce. Have a good day, yeah? 😁
Since more than one person read it different ways, it would be nice if the OP would explain what they meant. I did consider your graphing joke as a possibility, but when I actually did a search on "XY-wing" it turned up the sudoku reference.
When I read comments which seem to support my general worldview, but contain unnecessary (and stereotypical) racial slurs and references, I tend to attribute them to agent-provocateurs looking to discredit us and the discourse here.
I interpreted that as being a badly variablized "left-wing or right-wing". And was going to make it a math joke by saying that giving them both the X and Y axes was at least one axis too many. 🤪
LOL. I missed the reference when I read the post as some sort of typo or gibberish. When I read your comment here it made more sense as to what the poster was making reference to.
I'm with you. Call me a member of the XY-wing if it makes you feel better. Not sure how it would denote dementia.
Groypers and their hangers-on have got to be the most unhinged and annoying online political faction in existence. There's a sophistication range of anti-semitism from retarded petty bigotry up to full blown Unz-commenter level schizophrenia and they wouldn't even chart on this spectrum, believing as they do that "lol you are a Jew" is somehow the end to any argument that they disagree with. I don't usually go in for conspiracism, but Nick Fuentes has got to be some kind of op to discredit and keep tabs on the vanguard of the "Retard Right," as some twatter user so eloquently called it. It would certainly explain his being given a pass for his involvement in the "Capital Insurrection™" . . . just something to think about
Indeed. There is a very plausible Conspiracy Theory to be articulated, both about what happened to the 'alt-right' after Charlotesville, and about what happened to the certain sectors of the MAGA camp, including the AFricans, after 6 January. Each case became an opportunity for fed infiltration; in the wake of each setback, you see people within both movements start to go seriously haywire. The game with America First seems to have been, at first, to get the group to forge relationships with certain dimmer MAGA Republicans, only to burn them with the awkward and bizarre pro-Hitler signalling of Fuentes. This seriously compromised a few minor pro-Trump republicans, but it also resulted in America First severing basically all of its remotely viable political ties. Now they just stir up pointless infighting and brigade people on Twitter from their dense network of TG chat groups and subcontinental bot farms.
This is as good an explanation as I've heard regarding the tactics being used to quell populist rebellion. If you read some of Matt Taibbi's Racket News articles, it's easy to connect the dots to various US intel agencies, universities, and think tanks who incubated, developed, and used them against other countries.
Exactly Danno. The Twitter files release was confirmation of what many had speculated for quite some time. The last three years has forced many honest people to do a reexamination of what they have to this point derided as "conspiracy theory". But all too many people go from that to full on Alex Jones belief in utter nonsense. It takes critical thinking skills, experience and wisdom to separate the actual psych ops from the howling storm of dis mis and mal information that is being churned out. Two questions are important in that regard. One, what/who is the source(s)? Two, who benefits? If the answer is the same in both, you have a potential conflict of interest. Simple questions like that, would have at least blunted the collective idiocy of the last three plus years.
Aside from sympathy for the people ("on both sides") who actually have bombs falling on their heads, I take no sides in the Gaza mess. Yet it seems to be a cultural imperative. Just as with race, it gets dragged into every argument, no matter how irrelevantly.
What irritates me is Gay having the last laugh after all. She is returning to faculty where her annual salary will be $900,000 and she is in the process of being transformed from the worst Harvard President ever to a holy martyr whose acolytes in the faculty and student body will be slobbering over her for the foreseeable future.
it's going to be something like that, because her FAS dean salary was already like 870k/year. when administrators return to faculty they typically retain their elevated administrative pay so they can continue to support themselves in the manner to which they have grown accustomed.
for me, personal consequences for Gay are secondary. the entire DEI enterprise of which she is an emblem took a huge hit here.
> for me, personal consequences for Gay are secondary. the entire DEI enterprise of which she is an emblem took a huge hit here.
I'll believe it when I see it. Every white collar job in america still formally and explicitly discriminates against white people and in favour of black people. I think this is going to be forgotten / not cared about, a month from now, and nobody will change any behaviour
This whole "incremental victory is worthless, unless we can win everything in one fell swoop, there's no point even trying" attitude is a big factor behind the right's failure to win anything over the past few decades.
A dean salary like that is outrageous- especially as she wasn’t uniquely qualified for such a position to begin with! I’ve heard rumors that she has a guardian angel by the name of Obama, who supposedly even called Harvard to try and protect her.
I agree that it´s very good news that the DEI enterprise took a huge hit. More controversially, it would be even better, IMHO, if the DEI-ists did try to fight back and not just packed up and left without a fight. Since a lot of people have a big stake in this, I think it more likely than not that this will happen.
$900,000. So she makes as much or more in one year as I have made in my 50+ years of working in total. Yet I would venture to guess I've done more practical good, which could actually be said about just about anybody in the real world, from plumbers to grocery store checkers to farmers…
It's just that living here in 2024, $18k a year seems nearly unsurvivable. I pay 2/3rds of that in rent on a one bedroom apartment. In the Albuquerque Student Ghetto. Madness.
It would have been a lot less in terms of dollars. I can't recall for sure anymore, but I think it may have been about a tenth of what it is today. Seems like $5,000 a year was once a respectable middle-class income.
In a way I think it's for the best. Retaining her position shows that the organization hasn't really learned anything, and keeps her visible where her lack of work will continue to prove the point that some people aren't held to the same standards as the rest. Axing her entirely would be a short term victory for those of us who oppose the "variable standards of conduct" regime but ultimately it's probably better if she continues to eat a ~$900k a year hole in that personnel budget and continues to provide evidence of the absurdity of the whole institution.
The professor was Carol Swain, an emeritus professor at Vanderbilt and one of the top flight academics in the race analysis space. (She is a black woman against DEI after much study...really an interesting read.) She has noted that much of Gay's work was not only directly plagiarized, but that the basic premise of Gay's "original" work was Swain's.
I Saw Dr. Carol Swain on Newsmax this week. When it was pointed out she was eminently qualified to be president of Harvard, she said they would never consider her because they considered her the equivalent of an Old White Man. Go figure!
For some reason, I think "unearthing plagiarism" in academia would be quite salutary. Bring on sunlight, please. It would make for more honesty all around, even after the pain of the accountability that would be visited upon some who are discovered to have been out of integrity.
Calling out liars is not seen as injustice. Challenging DEI is seen as injustice. The very mentality behind DEI is resentment; a distortion of reality maintained over decades while living in a wealthy country that treats almost everyone well.
You don't need to travel far in the world to see what genuine racism, sexism or homophobia actually look like, and none of them look like free money, special quotas or other privileged treatment. They look like serious abuse, conflict and legally mandated discrimination like caste systems. No DEI aficionado faces any of that.
Well aware of that. I meant to refer more to the term itself, especially as in incorporates -phobia as a way to add extra disparagement toward those who don't favor the normalization agenda.
Yes the term is absurd. I was just lumping it in with the rest. I just find it all tiresome, except it is lavishly funded and destructive nonsense. So we are forced to pay attention.
I think the other two are absurd too, or at least semantically vacuous. But putting scare-quotes around all three in the list would indeed be tiresome.
yes, I mean I try to be as generous as possible. technically this would count as a book but wouldn't be weighted nearly as much as a monograph.
i suspect that her articles are mostly reworked bits from her dissertation, which is why there isn't any typical 'first book' of the kind normally expected of tenure candidates. this would indicate someone who has serious trouble publishing and can only produce in the coddled world of PhD school where your advisers and peers help you workshop every chapter. that's also consistent with her plagiarism, which is all about lifting unremarkable phrases from other people.
This is what conservatives in America call the "republicans pounce" syndrome in the press. When the left screws up, the media report on the reaction of the right.
Commenting before having read the article, as is my style
I haven't been following this particular thing too closely, but honestly the evidence of plagiarism I've seen kind of makes me roll my eyes and say "who cares". Like, the first one I saw, she pulled a quote from some other paper and didn't cite it properly. Yes, this is technically plagiarism, it's a violation of academic standards and expectations, and if you want to select for rule-followers, then it's a bad thing. But she didn't try to hide the fact that she was pulling a quote. In the paper, she said something like "In So-And-So's paper, they say blah blah blah". To me, for plagiarism to be actually nefarious, she would have to be trying to pass this off as her own work and she was clearly not doing that. Her offense strikes me less as a deception, and more as an offense against snobby academic social norms.
Honestly, I'm so cynical and conspiratorial-minded these days that I have a rather different interpretation: She became the president of Harvard specifically because she plagiarised in this way. It's kind of a Spandell-esque bio-Leninism argument: she was elevated to this position not in spite of this baggage, but because of it. The people who elevated her thought they could use this to control her. And that's what we're seeing now. The people who fund Harvard have strong opinions on certain geopolitical nation states. She contradicted their opinions publicly, so now they're pulling out the blackmail material to ruin her career. They would never have elevated someone to that position who doesn't have any blackmail material out there, because then they wouldn't be able to do this.
Or, to put it more succinctly: "oh, a bunch of people who hate me are taking revenge on a different person who hates me, by removing her from a position of power and authority in an organization I will never be welcome in. Remind me again why I should care?"
The earliest plagiarism accusations, including the ones first published by Rufo and Brunet, were very borderline and unlikely to entail serious consequences, because – as you say – she was not being deceptive and basically seemed to have trouble independently summarising sources she was already citing/quoting. The Free Beacon revelations on 11 December included a few much more serious incidents, including one where she lifted (without citation) a slightly technical statistical discussion from one of her colleagues, and then altered a few words to make it apply to a totally different dataset. Then there is the weird dissertation acknowledgments plagiarism and other cases that seem to indicate a serious infirmity. It goes without saying, of course, that students would go down even for the more minor infractions of the kind harvard was initially willing to forgive.
> It goes without saying, of course, that students would go down even for the more minor infractions of the kind harvard was initially willing to forgive.
This is something that I care a lot more about. Regardless of my feelings on what the reaction to her plagiarism _should_ be, it is clear and obvious that she has been cut considerably more slack than anyone else would have, and we all know why that is.
I'm going to chalk this up to conflicting social norms between academia and software engineering.
In software engineering, 'plagiarism' is rampant, and for the most part condoned. The predominant attitude is "I don't care who wrote it, I just care that it's good". People will copypaste code from the internet all time. People will download other peoples' libraries and incorporate them as dependencies. This is just normal and if you were to tell someone that they can't copy someone else's work, and they have to do it themselves, they'd just look at you with confusion and say "but why? They already did it. There's no point in me doing it again"
> The Free Beacon revelations on 11 December included a few much more serious incidents, including one where she lifted (without citation) a slightly technical statistical discussion from one of her colleagues, and then altered a few words to make it apply to a totally different dataset.
Like I really don't think this is a problem, assuming that the technical statistical discussion is actually still relevant to the different data set.
And if it's not, I would think that the technical statistical discussion should fail on its merits long before anyone knows or cares that it was lifted from elsewhere
I don't know. In software, these kinds of things are judged on the object-level merits without care for the context. That's just normal here. Maybe that's not how it works in academia
Eidein, that's not in any way plagiarism by its original definition, and I see no possible benefit from trying to extend its meaning to cover that kind of copying.
Software engineers and their cousins who don't want their stuff copied, either literally or conceptually, don't post it on the internet for one and all to read.
Citation is important in academia because it lets you check that somebody's actually representing a piece of work accurately. I remember several cases where I looked up a text that was cited as saying X, only to find it actually said something slightly different (or, in one case, wildly different). Without citations, I'd either have to just accept a claim on trust -- not ideal, given the existence of bad or incompetent actors -- or look up the sources for the claims, which is harder, or even impossible, if the claims aren't properly cited.
The old me would have said oh, those nutty conspiracy theorists, how can anyone be so crazy? The new me says yeah, probably, something like that. Or put another way - a legitimate black scholar would not exhibit sufficient politically-correct stupidity to be what they're looking for. Think Thomas Sowell, Joseph Ladapo, Carol Swain - there are plenty out there. If they want the woke stupidity they crave, they will also have to accept academic zero-ness and its attendant risk of plagiarism.
I mean, we live in a world in which almost every currently sitting politician who matters (on the left _and_ the right!) has a long documented history of being buddies with convicted pedophile ring operator Jeffrey Epstein, and nobody bats an eye. It is obvious to anyone who is looking that this dynamic permeates every power structure in our society.
If you're clean, you don't get to be successful, because then the people above you can't control you.
Let's remind ourselves that DEI is essentially a hustle, with a creamy nougat center of mind-fuckery. That is, it's just an effort to get something for nothing, in the case of Ms Gray, status and legitimacy. But she was never more than Harvard's participation prize. I expect them to replace her with Admiral "Rachel" (Richard) Levine of the Dept of Health and Human Services.l
I posted this in a reply to a reply, but wanted to put it out here to get some responses. Is the statement that DEI = Discrimination, Exclusion & Indoctrination accurate? I believe it’s a good summary of what that movement is actually based on and what is the end result of their activities. Agree or disagree?
Also, don't expect Harvard to replace Gay with anything other than another diversity hire. Given the academic universe in which all of them reside, failure to do so will be unthinkable. Wouldn't want the lefties to be upset.
having watched various universities struggle mightily over the years to appoint diverse black yass queen presidents (the pool of qualified candidates is extremely limited), i will have popcorn ready for the coming year.
Fifty years ago I was the school office secretary for a NYC private school (whose wokeness has now reached peak insomnia) when they replaced the aged white spinster-lady principal with a yass queen who lasted just about as long as Gay.
> “There are going to be people, particularly if they have any inkling that the person of color is not the most qualified, who will label them a ‘DEI hire,’ like they tried to label her,”
I noticed this trend in politics and culture in the US a long time ago, it comes in many forms, and it annoys me to no end.
"How dare you point out that the person on our side did something horrible. That might give people the idea that our side has people who do horrible things on it".
There's like this complete and total refusal to acknowledge any facts on the ground. Whether or not the person _actually is a diversity hire_, whether or not the person _actually is incompetent_, is treated like an irrelevant detail. It's like some weird combination of post-modern refusal to acknowledge reality, and Soviet-style gaslighting, and it's EVERYWHERE in our society.
> Without commenting on the merits of the allegations against Gay, President Irene Mulvey of the American Association of University Professors said she fears plagiarism investigations could be “weaponized” to pursue a political agenda.
THE MERITS OF THE ALLEGATIONS ARE THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IN THIS SITUATION. Plagiarism investigations would not be able to be weaponized in this way if there was no plagiarism. Meanwhile, at least if we all agree that plagiarism is bad (I do not, see other comment), it _should_ be weaponized if it's present.
But we're going to completely skip over the actual important facts, in order to chastise people for believing their lying eyes. "Oh no, Doctor Gay plagiarising things might make people think that we're the kind of people who are ok with our university plagiarising things. That would be bad, and you're a bad person for thinking that".
Just as an aside, certainly for me this has opened my eyes as regards what is happening in the West re academia. No wonder, in UK at least, young males especially no longer consider a Uni education as something to be proud of.
I get Igor's point but don't fully agree. It's obviously the case that Gay went down after her hearing with Stefanik inspired much closer scrutiny of her work, but if you're such a fraud that you can't even write your dissertation acknowledgments without uncited borrowings, you get what's coming to you in my book.
Also too, Gay had already survived the Stefanik fracas; the Harvard Corporation stood by her until the much more extensive (and serious) plagiarism accusations emerged after 11 December. These would have been a huge problem for her even without the antisemitism controversy.
If she as the preeminent public face of higher learning and scholarship can’t face accountability then the preeminent message would be scholarship no longer has meaning and we’re ok with that.
comments limited to subscribers because I'm currently getting dragged by various parties for not 'naming the Jew'
I'm always bemused how the most excellentest writers on Substack attract some of the most derangest readers.
The trolls are probably NGO-supported hacks employed for the purpose of disrupting intelligent discourse which counters their narratives.
I think a very considerable number of these people are extremely unhappy guys obsessed with Magical Jews to excuse their own failures. Imagine considering oneself such losers who somehow let an infinitesimally small minority of human beings take over everything!
Zaktly. 20 million Jews secretly rule the world.
So secret, even the Jews are unaware.
I find it quite enjoyable that all these tough would-be warriors of Valhalla keep moaning about how the Jews are too clever for 'em.
Buncha weak willied weenies.
Why do you think all the dissidents are now on their own substacks?
Sorry, but the "Jews" control the media.
Two things:
1) The Balfour Declaration - an illegal and fraudulent document allowing a third party of no political agency (other than land) to have access to lands already occupied by the original Semites: the Palestinians.
2) The legal oppression of criticism of Jews and/or Holohoax in 17 countries, where criticism can lead to prison time.
Please tell me why these two topics cannot be included in the discussion of the Jewish Lobby in U$A?
The trolls go where the crowds are? Seems quite unsurprising.
Perhaps, I’m being dense here, but I don’t understand the reference to not “naming the Jew.” Who is this referring to?
some political commentators argue that this incident is about how 'Zionists' are reasserting control over Diversity in American academia and believe I am being deliberately disingenuous in celebrating the loss it represents for the Diversity, Inclusion and Equity charlatans.
Ah . . . I get it!
DEI = Discrimination, Exclusion & Indoctrination
Jewish representation at America's "elite" universities in the student body and faculty is drastically reduced from a few decades ago. So that ain't it. DEI is stupid, regressive, and inhumane, imposing a system of arbitrary prejudice onto what was previously a relatively meritocratic environment. The irony of course is that the "anti-racist" dipshits on the Left are blaming the Jews because all racism is bad except the racism directed at whoever is pissing off the Commies at the moment. Fucktards.
Well, in fact Gay was skating to the top despite the fact that many people knew and had pointed out that she was a serial plagiarist..It was only when she failed to support our "Greatest Ally" in its Gaza genocide that she got in trouble...
Should I be checking under my bed?
Yes.
Thanks for explaining.
Quite a reasonable essay, as usual. DEI somewhat like 'woke' is becoming untenable as we, the public, become aware of how foolish it becomes in practice. Various factions seem to have found a home in academia to create an agenda that has become anti-democratic in favor of some dream society proven fatal whenever tried. Beyond Rufo we are tired of useless pontification about impractical policies that never address real issues. Many of these "learned scholars" are frauds and need to be challenged. Finally some losing credibility, thanks.
I still don't get it, but I guess I've never bought into many of the theories of "Zionists" controlling the world. Is the troll army arguing more of the same along that line?
Well, they certainly control the US government, as Bibi has stated several times...Why did Truman recognize Israel in 1948 when the entire State Dept opposed it?
Because he didn't want all those surviving Jews in displaced persons camps to come here.
Read ZH comments. Godwins Law variations. 10 comments I to any post, all the ills associated with the article are blamed on Jews, Zionists,Mossad, Israel. No matter what.
Probably a good idea to leave it that way by default, don't think we need conspiracy boomers and their tiresome shizo rants about ((((THEM))) here.
The older this demographic gets the crazier they become, and I don't call them „XY-wing” on purpose, since their worldview isn't complex enough to be deserving of a name. It's just dementia and the media capitalizes on it.
maybe I'll poll subscribers again on whether all of you want the comments permanently limited. i asked at the start of the blog and everyone wanted them open, but I've gotten a bigger readership since then and even the subscriber-only posts tend to have lively discussion.
I think that every Substacker has the right to set access as he will and I also feel very sad when some Substacks to which I am a free subscriber prevent me from commenting.
Myself, I don't mind reading the loony posts. Sometimes we do need a good hearty laugh.
If someone is truly deranged and repeats the same drivel endlessly in a river of comments, it's appropriate to ban them because taking out the trash is sometimes necessary. But that should be according to your own taste in the matter.
Reading an occasional loony post can actually be informative.
Being *deluged* by them and the accompanying flame wars is another matter entirely. eugyppius certainly has my sympathy.
My own personal view is, leave it as open as possible. But that's a free speech absolutist speaking and my views might be out of vogue even in this cosy corner of the internet.
On the substance of the thing: I certainly don't think you are being deliberately disingenuous, but I do maintain that Gay's takedown reveals something about the fault lines of power in this here culture war. To wit, if she had voiced reluctance to censor speech that called for the genocide of "cis-gendered, goy, white males", I can't help but think she might still be president of Harvard today.
I don't mean to deny that Gay's demise is largely due to the controversy over her 5 Dec. exchange with Stefanik. (Though I do think it's important that she survived the initial controversy – Harvard stood by her; her ultimate demise really was down to the escalating evidence of plagiarism.)
I guess you could say that I'm a simple man and I will enjoy the rare victories where I can find them. The DEI apparatus at these schools is a truly malign force, I think much worse that it may seem on the outside.
'The DEI apparatus at these schools is a truly malign force, I think much worse that it may seem on the outside.'
And which is totally unacknowledged in that AP article.
It was amusing that scalping was only a Bad Thing when culturally appropriated by white colonials.
Update to that! (I love the Daily Mail so much...)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12923691/associated-press-harvard-president-claudine-gay-conservative-weapon.html
Oh, you have no idea. DEI is and always has been about power at all costs and the people pushing it become psychological addicted to the emotional payoff that it presents. I think it's actually a form of mental illness caused by excessive focus on 'who one is' rather than 'what one does'.
Surprising behaviors similar on both the left and the right in the USA, Trumpism basically being the false opposite of DEI.
Harvard made it clear they were satisfied with Claudine Gay's testimony, even if she almost simultaneously apologised for it - whilst shallow it was suitably non-committal.
The fall was down to poor standards exhibited by a Claudine Gay in the general body of works, the impossibly meagre output and outstanding hypocrisy.
I think it ultimately came down to $$$ being pulled by the billionaire donors, resulting from the 5 Dec debacle. After all, Harvard is run by a body aptly named 'The Corporation'.
Once again the defense of Gay is a steel man, (or is it straw man?). Avoid the merits of the argument and redirect to the tired old racist, existential threat, weaponization tropes.
So academic freedom = you are free to copy others work in order to obtain lucrative and powerful positions? How was academic freedom preserved when faculty were canceled or forced to resign over liking tweets or acknowledging basic biology?
Very practical! But some people at Harvard and elsewhere. knew about her plagiarism, and had spoken up before this, to no effect....
Did you happen to read Eli Steele’s piece on Gay being a prime example of why he refused to check the “black” box? It’s quite good.
If her ultimate demise was really due to plagiarism, the modern university system would be on the cusp of something far more foundation shaking than Hollywood's MeToo.
The DEI apparatus has resulted in reverse discrimination by nominal corporations despite the shareholders (Blackrock, Vanguard) now slowly backing away from endorsing both DEI and ESG - painfully as they discover lower returns.
Coffee & Covid is an example of a SS where the comment threads are too unwieldy to fully "grok." And eugyppius has some posts with very long comment threads.
I really do miss the "collapse thread" functionality that SS removed some time back. Those left/right or pro-Trump/anti-Trump threads can get very tiresome.
Just click on the vertical line next to the comment(s) and they'll collapse :)
Gresham's Law applies here: bad commenters drive out good. Furthermore, I sometimes suspect that Jim is right: there are office buildings full of paid shills systematically attacking right-wing blogs and forums.
And left leaning ones that don't follow the narrative.
Maybe making the comments subscriber-only could be on a case by case basis, depending on the article? As KHP mentions, sometimes the loony posts can be helpful.
Like SCA, there are some writers I read regularly but can't comment. Sometimes I find this very frustrating, but now at least we have Notes as an outlet :)
Yes, I was somewhat assuaged when I realized I could just restack a post and leave my remarks on it there.
I like subscriber only comments. It helps curate and show commitment.
Everything on the internet is monitored. It seems once you start to get popular enough that you're on the establishment's radar, the various forms of censorship appear.
I guess it’s the same old. Once you go down the diversity vs merit hire, it follows that there cannot be a sacking for a lack of merit. That becomes an impossibility.
The bigger something gets the more the need for some degree of gatekeeping. As a former part of academia you probably know that^^
And it's not like I want that people be pushed out for disagreement or writing stuff I think is crazy per se, just that with increased size some kind of filtering might become necessary regardless.
Its your blog. But its better to know what the focus of the various factions is, than to get blind sided by it. But before you throw out the baby with the bath water, look at G.Edward Griffins The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve. Its a fascinating look at the history of the US central bank.
There are plenty of "crazies" across the board of all ages. As one of those "boomers" that you deride, and a well educated critical thinker, your comments are about as intentionally insulting as they come. You too will grow older and hopefully, always be as smart as you are today.
Yes, I will age too and might become crazy too. What part of my observation does that disprove?
And I didn't mean to insult, it was meant as a humorous take on the reality of a society that is getting older and thus more dement with each day.
Thank you.
You identify specifically as a "conspiracy boomer"?
How strange.
Exact. I already specified what subgroup I refer too. I obviously don't mean old people in general or even the boomers in general, just the ones that can't accept that they're too old and thus shouldn't expose themselves in politics anymore. What age that is is if course highly variable, but some cut-off point exists for every person.
It's not really a conspiracy theory to note that nobody gave a shit about her plagiarism until she criticized the one country you can't.
And it's also not racist or schizo to point out literal facts in the world
Exactly. The Harvard board that united in defense of the kween was no match for an outraged Bill Ackman. Plagiarism is the fig leaf to mask the forces responsible for her (comfortable) demise.
Her plagiarism was a frequent subject of commenters on economics/statistics anonymous (mostly for prudent reasons) online boards but those people were regularly scorned and maligned by faculty and administrators at the Ivies. But Chris Brunet was onto her in April 2022.
https://www.karlstack.com/p/the-curious-case-of-claudine-gay
'don't think we need conspiracy boomers and their tiresome shizo rants about ((((THEM))) here.'
I find those rants as tiresome as the next person, but it might be an overgeneralization to blame it on boomers with dementia. There are plenty of younger people with the same mindset.
I might be a little sensitive about your remark because tomorrow is my 70th birthday. Nevertheless, I defend your right to your opinion, and only hope you might refine it.
Thanks Tardigrade. I just turned 66 at Christmas. My kids, all in their 20's and 30's have some of the most closed-minded and inane world views. I love my kids, and they're allowed their opinions (however uninformed I find them), but having a rational discussion about nearly anything of consequence or controversy is challenging. My sensitivity to broad brush age related insults can be fairly keen.
Thanks to both of you Sagittarians. I just turned 78 and I take umbrage to all the boomer blame. If it wasn't for us all those snotnoses wouldn't be around. When we went to school there were no participation trophies, we earned our grades by our test results.
To have a president of Harvard engage in activities we would have been failed for only reinforces the stupidity of DEI. You can blame us for the world's ills; it's just too bad we won't be around to see how well you do.
Thanks pnoldguy! As my birthday falls on Dec 23, I assume I'm a Capricorn on the cusp of Sagittarius. Since I've never much followed Astrology, I defer to those who might know better.
Greetings, fellow goat!
Actually, Capricorn here.
Ditto.
You kid, you! Happy Birthday wishes in advance!
Am I the *only* person here reading "conspiracy boomers" as a specific subset?
Yes. Because it's clearly another insult to the baby boomer generation. Who might even make up the majority of eugy's paid subscribers.
It's certainly an insult towards some of them.
This thread has gotten pretty long, so here is the original post:
'Probably a good idea to leave it that way by default, don't think we need conspiracy boomers and their tiresome shizo rants about ((((THEM))) here.
'The older this demographic gets the crazier they become, and I don't call them „XY-wing” on purpose, since their worldview isn't complex enough to be deserving of a name. It's just dementia and the media capitalizes on it.'
The first paragraph definitely refers to a subset. The second paragraph gets a little more vague, and it may be those of us in the middle of "that demographic" are too sensitive about it. Admittedly, at the risk of further normalizing self-victimization. Your point is well taken.
I still don't understand the sudoku reference 🤣
Yeah, I'm right in the middle of that demo (uhhh, to be clear, the age part, not the insane part) and I take no offense whatsoever. Why *anyone* without a thick skin would be taking part in internet discussions is beyond me...
See, now *I* read "XY-wing" as a somewhat badly phrased stand in for "left-wing or right-wing". But I'm a programmer, so I actually do tend to use variable substitution in my actual speech. And I had meant to make a joke that giving folks of the conspiracy mindset two axes (turning it into a graphing math joke) was at least one axis too many. If there's one thing I've learned in thirty years of being in the internet, it's that pure text communication is a *lot* more difficult than people give it credit for, and the last ten years of social media have taught me that it is often the case that people will make the "maximally pessimistic" interpretation of what another person types out. Because all of the nuance of even *hand* written communication (line weight, lean, etc) is missing, let alone facial expression, body language, tone, and all that.
Anyway, there's my blab for the nonce. Have a good day, yeah? 😁
Maybe it has to do with GenX/GenY?
Since more than one person read it different ways, it would be nice if the OP would explain what they meant. I did consider your graphing joke as a possibility, but when I actually did a search on "XY-wing" it turned up the sudoku reference.
When I read comments which seem to support my general worldview, but contain unnecessary (and stereotypical) racial slurs and references, I tend to attribute them to agent-provocateurs looking to discredit us and the discourse here.
XY-wing? Seriously, if someone labeled me that, I'd consider it a compliment.
I interpreted that as being a badly variablized "left-wing or right-wing". And was going to make it a math joke by saying that giving them both the X and Y axes was at least one axis too many. 🤪
I had to look up XY-wing, but that didn't help at all. Is it really referring to a sudoku solution technique?
I assumed chromosomes.
SMH
Same.
I had no idea that the sudoku technique existed. We'll see if it helps...
LOL. I missed the reference when I read the post as some sort of typo or gibberish. When I read your comment here it made more sense as to what the poster was making reference to.
I'm with you. Call me a member of the XY-wing if it makes you feel better. Not sure how it would denote dementia.
It means you think like a man, using logic and abstract reasoning to solve problems. Some folks have a problem with that.
We are not all crazy. I leave those sites.
Groypers and their hangers-on have got to be the most unhinged and annoying online political faction in existence. There's a sophistication range of anti-semitism from retarded petty bigotry up to full blown Unz-commenter level schizophrenia and they wouldn't even chart on this spectrum, believing as they do that "lol you are a Jew" is somehow the end to any argument that they disagree with. I don't usually go in for conspiracism, but Nick Fuentes has got to be some kind of op to discredit and keep tabs on the vanguard of the "Retard Right," as some twatter user so eloquently called it. It would certainly explain his being given a pass for his involvement in the "Capital Insurrection™" . . . just something to think about
Indeed. There is a very plausible Conspiracy Theory to be articulated, both about what happened to the 'alt-right' after Charlotesville, and about what happened to the certain sectors of the MAGA camp, including the AFricans, after 6 January. Each case became an opportunity for fed infiltration; in the wake of each setback, you see people within both movements start to go seriously haywire. The game with America First seems to have been, at first, to get the group to forge relationships with certain dimmer MAGA Republicans, only to burn them with the awkward and bizarre pro-Hitler signalling of Fuentes. This seriously compromised a few minor pro-Trump republicans, but it also resulted in America First severing basically all of its remotely viable political ties. Now they just stir up pointless infighting and brigade people on Twitter from their dense network of TG chat groups and subcontinental bot farms.
This is as good an explanation as I've heard regarding the tactics being used to quell populist rebellion. If you read some of Matt Taibbi's Racket News articles, it's easy to connect the dots to various US intel agencies, universities, and think tanks who incubated, developed, and used them against other countries.
Exactly Danno. The Twitter files release was confirmation of what many had speculated for quite some time. The last three years has forced many honest people to do a reexamination of what they have to this point derided as "conspiracy theory". But all too many people go from that to full on Alex Jones belief in utter nonsense. It takes critical thinking skills, experience and wisdom to separate the actual psych ops from the howling storm of dis mis and mal information that is being churned out. Two questions are important in that regard. One, what/who is the source(s)? Two, who benefits? If the answer is the same in both, you have a potential conflict of interest. Simple questions like that, would have at least blunted the collective idiocy of the last three plus years.
Aside from sympathy for the people ("on both sides") who actually have bombs falling on their heads, I take no sides in the Gaza mess. Yet it seems to be a cultural imperative. Just as with race, it gets dragged into every argument, no matter how irrelevantly.
"The Jew"?
Do they mean "Elijah"?
🤪
Having read the whole thread, I'm good with that.
Jew here. Lol. Thanks for explaining.
What irritates me is Gay having the last laugh after all. She is returning to faculty where her annual salary will be $900,000 and she is in the process of being transformed from the worst Harvard President ever to a holy martyr whose acolytes in the faculty and student body will be slobbering over her for the foreseeable future.
We should all have such wages for our sins.
That doesn’t even include the money she will make as a public speaker or the book deal she is about to land.
Apparently she might need a ghost writer.
Millie Vanillie's Ghostwriter Willie.
Given her track record one wouldn’t expect her to be able to “actually” write the book herself. But she’ll land the deal. 😉
The real money will be in the Gay Writes Barbie.
There ain't no justice, is there?
Is that actually true? $900,000?
it's going to be something like that, because her FAS dean salary was already like 870k/year. when administrators return to faculty they typically retain their elevated administrative pay so they can continue to support themselves in the manner to which they have grown accustomed.
for me, personal consequences for Gay are secondary. the entire DEI enterprise of which she is an emblem took a huge hit here.
> for me, personal consequences for Gay are secondary. the entire DEI enterprise of which she is an emblem took a huge hit here.
I'll believe it when I see it. Every white collar job in america still formally and explicitly discriminates against white people and in favour of black people. I think this is going to be forgotten / not cared about, a month from now, and nobody will change any behaviour
This whole "incremental victory is worthless, unless we can win everything in one fell swoop, there's no point even trying" attitude is a big factor behind the right's failure to win anything over the past few decades.
A dean salary like that is outrageous- especially as she wasn’t uniquely qualified for such a position to begin with! I’ve heard rumors that she has a guardian angel by the name of Obama, who supposedly even called Harvard to try and protect her.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/obama-quietly-pushed-harvard-to-keep-embattled-president-claudine-gay-report/ar-AA1lVfCW
Let's hope it's the little thorn-prick that lets all the anthrax in and finishes the beast off.
I agree that it´s very good news that the DEI enterprise took a huge hit. More controversially, it would be even better, IMHO, if the DEI-ists did try to fight back and not just packed up and left without a fight. Since a lot of people have a big stake in this, I think it more likely than not that this will happen.
Being a credit to your race takes a bigger bite of the budget than it used to.
another example of how the rich and well connected always "fail upwards."
In the old days we called that the Peter Principle IIRC!
You do RC
$900,000. So she makes as much or more in one year as I have made in my 50+ years of working in total. Yet I would venture to guess I've done more practical good, which could actually be said about just about anybody in the real world, from plumbers to grocery store checkers to farmers…
$18,000 a year on average for 50 years?
On the flip side, at 47, I have no idea what people were earning 50 years ago.
*shrug*
That's about right. I've never been ambitious. But I've always managed to pay my own way.
It's just that living here in 2024, $18k a year seems nearly unsurvivable. I pay 2/3rds of that in rent on a one bedroom apartment. In the Albuquerque Student Ghetto. Madness.
Depends on where you live. I will admit that I was in a pretty high-cost tourist town, and could never afford a place by myself.
It would have been a lot less in terms of dollars. I can't recall for sure anymore, but I think it may have been about a tenth of what it is today. Seems like $5,000 a year was once a respectable middle-class income.
I mean, I know inflation is insane, but... dang.
That's up-side-down world resulting from government having too much power and money.
In a way I think it's for the best. Retaining her position shows that the organization hasn't really learned anything, and keeps her visible where her lack of work will continue to prove the point that some people aren't held to the same standards as the rest. Axing her entirely would be a short term victory for those of us who oppose the "variable standards of conduct" regime but ultimately it's probably better if she continues to eat a ~$900k a year hole in that personnel budget and continues to provide evidence of the absurdity of the whole institution.
Yes, absolutely in that sense. But it would be much more fun for her to be rendered highly wroth for the foreseeable future.
Shit, I'd be happy to get those wages for my *virtues*!
...
Though, perhaps not if it meant I had to hang out at Harvard. I'd probably want a lot more for putting up with that. 🤣
Wonderfully perverse lesson they're teaching the student body, fer shure.
I don't recall her name, but the first person I saw calling for Gay's resignation was a black woman scholar from whom Gay had apparently lifted prose.
yes, Carol Swain
The professor was Carol Swain, an emeritus professor at Vanderbilt and one of the top flight academics in the race analysis space. (She is a black woman against DEI after much study...really an interesting read.) She has noted that much of Gay's work was not only directly plagiarized, but that the basic premise of Gay's "original" work was Swain's.
Clearly, a white supremacist of the most ignoble strain!
Dr Carol Swain
Dr. Carol Swain.
I Saw Dr. Carol Swain on Newsmax this week. When it was pointed out she was eminently qualified to be president of Harvard, she said they would never consider her because they considered her the equivalent of an Old White Man. Go figure!
Life is starting to sound more and more like a David Chapelle comedy sketch.
lol -- yes, "race" is a mindset, just like gender. lol
She's absolutely right!
"She and her enormous glasses of racial understanding."
Brilliant!
I know right? One comes to the Plague Chronicles for the insightful content, one stays for the epic takedowns.
Spectaclephobia. Rare, but definitely out there 🤔
For some reason, I think "unearthing plagiarism" in academia would be quite salutary. Bring on sunlight, please. It would make for more honesty all around, even after the pain of the accountability that would be visited upon some who are discovered to have been out of integrity.
We're beyond parody when calling out liars & frauds is seen as injustice.. can't make it up!
Calling out liars is not seen as injustice. Challenging DEI is seen as injustice. The very mentality behind DEI is resentment; a distortion of reality maintained over decades while living in a wealthy country that treats almost everyone well.
You don't need to travel far in the world to see what genuine racism, sexism or homophobia actually look like, and none of them look like free money, special quotas or other privileged treatment. They look like serious abuse, conflict and legally mandated discrimination like caste systems. No DEI aficionado faces any of that.
Did you mean to put scare-quotes around "homophobia", or were you using it non-ironically?
Well aware of that. I meant to refer more to the term itself, especially as in incorporates -phobia as a way to add extra disparagement toward those who don't favor the normalization agenda.
Yes the term is absurd. I was just lumping it in with the rest. I just find it all tiresome, except it is lavishly funded and destructive nonsense. So we are forced to pay attention.
I think the other two are absurd too, or at least semantically vacuous. But putting scare-quotes around all three in the list would indeed be tiresome.
I tire less easily than some, I guess. At times I've been known to double them up around a single term, or even triple, e.g:
" ' "Islamophobia" ' "
It is typically one of the protected characteristics that drive the diversity bus. Usually sexual minorities to hammer home the point.
“Claudine Gay achieved tenure at Harvard with a handful of articles and a single book”
Serious question, does being one of 4 co-editors count as writing a book?
(Lots of critiques kept pointing out she never wrote a book, which I’m told is rare to be missing on a potential Harvard president’s CV)
yes, I mean I try to be as generous as possible. technically this would count as a book but wouldn't be weighted nearly as much as a monograph.
i suspect that her articles are mostly reworked bits from her dissertation, which is why there isn't any typical 'first book' of the kind normally expected of tenure candidates. this would indicate someone who has serious trouble publishing and can only produce in the coddled world of PhD school where your advisers and peers help you workshop every chapter. that's also consistent with her plagiarism, which is all about lifting unremarkable phrases from other people.
Umm, did "they" make her cheat on her academic papers? LOL!
it's really unbelievable
I am positive that defending Gay is a really bad idea. LOL!
Equity, privilege, disenfranchise
This is what conservatives in America call the "republicans pounce" syndrome in the press. When the left screws up, the media report on the reaction of the right.
It's pathetic.
Commenting before having read the article, as is my style
I haven't been following this particular thing too closely, but honestly the evidence of plagiarism I've seen kind of makes me roll my eyes and say "who cares". Like, the first one I saw, she pulled a quote from some other paper and didn't cite it properly. Yes, this is technically plagiarism, it's a violation of academic standards and expectations, and if you want to select for rule-followers, then it's a bad thing. But she didn't try to hide the fact that she was pulling a quote. In the paper, she said something like "In So-And-So's paper, they say blah blah blah". To me, for plagiarism to be actually nefarious, she would have to be trying to pass this off as her own work and she was clearly not doing that. Her offense strikes me less as a deception, and more as an offense against snobby academic social norms.
Honestly, I'm so cynical and conspiratorial-minded these days that I have a rather different interpretation: She became the president of Harvard specifically because she plagiarised in this way. It's kind of a Spandell-esque bio-Leninism argument: she was elevated to this position not in spite of this baggage, but because of it. The people who elevated her thought they could use this to control her. And that's what we're seeing now. The people who fund Harvard have strong opinions on certain geopolitical nation states. She contradicted their opinions publicly, so now they're pulling out the blackmail material to ruin her career. They would never have elevated someone to that position who doesn't have any blackmail material out there, because then they wouldn't be able to do this.
Or, to put it more succinctly: "oh, a bunch of people who hate me are taking revenge on a different person who hates me, by removing her from a position of power and authority in an organization I will never be welcome in. Remind me again why I should care?"
The earliest plagiarism accusations, including the ones first published by Rufo and Brunet, were very borderline and unlikely to entail serious consequences, because – as you say – she was not being deceptive and basically seemed to have trouble independently summarising sources she was already citing/quoting. The Free Beacon revelations on 11 December included a few much more serious incidents, including one where she lifted (without citation) a slightly technical statistical discussion from one of her colleagues, and then altered a few words to make it apply to a totally different dataset. Then there is the weird dissertation acknowledgments plagiarism and other cases that seem to indicate a serious infirmity. It goes without saying, of course, that students would go down even for the more minor infractions of the kind harvard was initially willing to forgive.
> It goes without saying, of course, that students would go down even for the more minor infractions of the kind harvard was initially willing to forgive.
This is something that I care a lot more about. Regardless of my feelings on what the reaction to her plagiarism _should_ be, it is clear and obvious that she has been cut considerably more slack than anyone else would have, and we all know why that is.
I'm going to chalk this up to conflicting social norms between academia and software engineering.
In software engineering, 'plagiarism' is rampant, and for the most part condoned. The predominant attitude is "I don't care who wrote it, I just care that it's good". People will copypaste code from the internet all time. People will download other peoples' libraries and incorporate them as dependencies. This is just normal and if you were to tell someone that they can't copy someone else's work, and they have to do it themselves, they'd just look at you with confusion and say "but why? They already did it. There's no point in me doing it again"
> The Free Beacon revelations on 11 December included a few much more serious incidents, including one where she lifted (without citation) a slightly technical statistical discussion from one of her colleagues, and then altered a few words to make it apply to a totally different dataset.
Like I really don't think this is a problem, assuming that the technical statistical discussion is actually still relevant to the different data set.
And if it's not, I would think that the technical statistical discussion should fail on its merits long before anyone knows or cares that it was lifted from elsewhere
I don't know. In software, these kinds of things are judged on the object-level merits without care for the context. That's just normal here. Maybe that's not how it works in academia
Eidein, that's not in any way plagiarism by its original definition, and I see no possible benefit from trying to extend its meaning to cover that kind of copying.
Software engineers and their cousins who don't want their stuff copied, either literally or conceptually, don't post it on the internet for one and all to read.
Well, it's like calling musical plagiarism "sampling" and "an homage to the original creator" when it's just ordinary theft.
>> "... just ordinary theft".
I weep at the seemingly-unbreakable mind-warping power of that devastating little analogy "intellectual *property*".
Citation is important in academia because it lets you check that somebody's actually representing a piece of work accurately. I remember several cases where I looked up a text that was cited as saying X, only to find it actually said something slightly different (or, in one case, wildly different). Without citations, I'd either have to just accept a claim on trust -- not ideal, given the existence of bad or incompetent actors -- or look up the sources for the claims, which is harder, or even impossible, if the claims aren't properly cited.
The old me would have said oh, those nutty conspiracy theorists, how can anyone be so crazy? The new me says yeah, probably, something like that. Or put another way - a legitimate black scholar would not exhibit sufficient politically-correct stupidity to be what they're looking for. Think Thomas Sowell, Joseph Ladapo, Carol Swain - there are plenty out there. If they want the woke stupidity they crave, they will also have to accept academic zero-ness and its attendant risk of plagiarism.
I mean, we live in a world in which almost every currently sitting politician who matters (on the left _and_ the right!) has a long documented history of being buddies with convicted pedophile ring operator Jeffrey Epstein, and nobody bats an eye. It is obvious to anyone who is looking that this dynamic permeates every power structure in our society.
If you're clean, you don't get to be successful, because then the people above you can't control you.
Let's remind ourselves that DEI is essentially a hustle, with a creamy nougat center of mind-fuckery. That is, it's just an effort to get something for nothing, in the case of Ms Gray, status and legitimacy. But she was never more than Harvard's participation prize. I expect them to replace her with Admiral "Rachel" (Richard) Levine of the Dept of Health and Human Services.l
I posted this in a reply to a reply, but wanted to put it out here to get some responses. Is the statement that DEI = Discrimination, Exclusion & Indoctrination accurate? I believe it’s a good summary of what that movement is actually based on and what is the end result of their activities. Agree or disagree?
It's not what they use it to mean, but it's very accurate in reality, IMO.
So she got the job “in large part because she’s Black.” Well, 100% is a pretty large part of anything, so it’s probably an accurate statement.
Not quite 100%, to be fair.
She also got the job because she's a woman.
Also, don't expect Harvard to replace Gay with anything other than another diversity hire. Given the academic universe in which all of them reside, failure to do so will be unthinkable. Wouldn't want the lefties to be upset.
having watched various universities struggle mightily over the years to appoint diverse black yass queen presidents (the pool of qualified candidates is extremely limited), i will have popcorn ready for the coming year.
Fifty years ago I was the school office secretary for a NYC private school (whose wokeness has now reached peak insomnia) when they replaced the aged white spinster-lady principal with a yass queen who lasted just about as long as Gay.
> “There are going to be people, particularly if they have any inkling that the person of color is not the most qualified, who will label them a ‘DEI hire,’ like they tried to label her,”
I noticed this trend in politics and culture in the US a long time ago, it comes in many forms, and it annoys me to no end.
"How dare you point out that the person on our side did something horrible. That might give people the idea that our side has people who do horrible things on it".
There's like this complete and total refusal to acknowledge any facts on the ground. Whether or not the person _actually is a diversity hire_, whether or not the person _actually is incompetent_, is treated like an irrelevant detail. It's like some weird combination of post-modern refusal to acknowledge reality, and Soviet-style gaslighting, and it's EVERYWHERE in our society.
Excellent example:
> Without commenting on the merits of the allegations against Gay, President Irene Mulvey of the American Association of University Professors said she fears plagiarism investigations could be “weaponized” to pursue a political agenda.
THE MERITS OF THE ALLEGATIONS ARE THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IN THIS SITUATION. Plagiarism investigations would not be able to be weaponized in this way if there was no plagiarism. Meanwhile, at least if we all agree that plagiarism is bad (I do not, see other comment), it _should_ be weaponized if it's present.
But we're going to completely skip over the actual important facts, in order to chastise people for believing their lying eyes. "Oh no, Doctor Gay plagiarising things might make people think that we're the kind of people who are ok with our university plagiarising things. That would be bad, and you're a bad person for thinking that".
"Without commenting on the merits of the allegations against Manson..."
Just for those who may not know, Igor Chudov has written a very interesting article about Gray.
Well worth reading -
https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/plagiarist-harvard-president-resigns?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=441185&post_id=140293544&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=x6a6a&utm_medium=email
Just as an aside, certainly for me this has opened my eyes as regards what is happening in the West re academia. No wonder, in UK at least, young males especially no longer consider a Uni education as something to be proud of.
I get Igor's point but don't fully agree. It's obviously the case that Gay went down after her hearing with Stefanik inspired much closer scrutiny of her work, but if you're such a fraud that you can't even write your dissertation acknowledgments without uncited borrowings, you get what's coming to you in my book.
Also too, Gay had already survived the Stefanik fracas; the Harvard Corporation stood by her until the much more extensive (and serious) plagiarism accusations emerged after 11 December. These would have been a huge problem for her even without the antisemitism controversy.
If she as the preeminent public face of higher learning and scholarship can’t face accountability then the preeminent message would be scholarship no longer has meaning and we’re ok with that.
I've mentioned before that I'm more and more relieved that I never went to college.
Although back then, it might've actually been a good education.