Friends, this week's Newsmaker Show with me and Brian O'Neil ranges across numerous scintillating topics, as always. One of them is our growing addiction, as a society, to social media and our electronic devices, which is impacting young people especially harshly. In addition, Brian and I cover the ongoing battle for political supremacy between Israel's Supreme Court and the Netanyahu government, the bigger picture of improved safety in air travel in the wake of the runway collision in Tokyo, Japan, the divided ranks of the Trump alternatives in the GOP, the prospects for a GOP collapse if Trump isn't made the nominee, the nature of Trump's fandom, the question of whether Republican/conservative consternation about election rigging may reduce their tendency to vote, the chances that SCOTUS will intervene in the campaign to remove DJT from the presidential ballot, the state of the polls and the prospects for Republican victory even in traditionally blue states, and the sad fate of Claudine Gay amidst the growing acceptance of mediocrity and even dishonesty in academia.
That's right -- there was so much breaking news and urgent analysis this week that he didn't have time for "This Day in History"! Sometimes, history just has to wait...
Dr. Waddy from Jack: So Harvard's erstwhile "President" relinquished the post for which she had not even the suggestion of qualification and now must fall back on the 800k pittance she draws as a tenured prof. Well! That still puts her in some exalted company I shouldn't wonder but she might consider writing a book now and again. Anyway, I'm strongly considering returning to grad school; I would be pleased to serve as President of any Ivy League school. Why even Tufts or Amherst would do. Actually , my MLS should alone gain me the Directorship of Harvard's world class library. There has been much criticism of Harvard for elevating her but she deserves much discredit for having cynically sought and accepted a position for which her credentials were absurd.
ReplyDeleteJack, she will draw the $800K for whatever time the settlement language in her contract suggests, and then get whatever salary (likely around $180-200K per year) that tenured full professors get a Harvard.
DeleteThere is also this myth that university presidents get picked because they are academic stars. Increasingly, university presidents get picked because of careers in politics or business, and often lack any connection with higher education. Gay lacked a deep academic record, but she had a fair amount of higher education administration experience.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Oh, and what will she "teach", pray? Middle Eastern studies perhaps?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: By the way, how did she even get tenure? Oh . . . yeh.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteI think you already know the answer to your statement posing as a question, "how did she even get tenure?" Please fill in the blanks: She got tenure because she is _____________ and a ______________. If you give the correct words you will receive a star by your name.
Dr. Waddy and Ray et al from Jack: "Nice work if you can get it and you can get it if you. . . .!"
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Upon her departure she displayed a distinct lack of grace by playing the race card. Not only did she thereby bring more opprobrium upon herself but she enforced a public cynicism about such charges which makes it that much harder to pursue redress for actual racial injustice.
ReplyDeleteFROM RAY
DeleteAt least she should get some kudos for knowing how to play the system to her advantage.
She played the race card? As if the death threats and n-word references weren't enough, Claudine Gay endured a month of being labeled an affirmative action hire (I think we can recognize the code there). She played the race card much like Clarence Thomas played the race card at his SCOTUS confirmation hearing. Not surprising as she was subject to an academic lynching.
DeleteJack, I agree that Claudine Gay was out of her depth from the outset as President of Harvard, and to some extent the people who put her in that position did not only Harvard, but her, a disservice. Of course, so did all the academics who, presumably, reviewed and published her deeply flawed articles. If she had been caught out at some stage, and stung by the consequences of plagiarism (or what used to be the consequences), she might have learned a valuable lesson.
ReplyDeleteRod is right that a college president doesn't necessarily percolate up from the faculty, and won't necessarily be a star academician. A politician, say, can make a good college president, because the job is mostly about giving speeches, making connections, and raising money. Be that as it may, the standards ought to be pretty darn high at the nation's premier institution of higher ed, and, if you're going to hire someone whose C.V. is thin, it had better at least contain some articles that they wrote all by themselves!
Hmm. An "academic lynching", Rod? Looks who's playing the "race card" now! Was the president of Penn also attacked for racial reasons? No, I guess that dog won't hunt, will it? Sure, no doubt some people disliked Claudine Gay for racist reasons, and I'm sure some of them said mean, racist things. No doubt some of the people that dislike Trump aren't crazy about his gender and his skin tone either, and aren't shy about saying so, but does that discredit Trump hatred as a whole? Not in the circles you move in, I'll bet! Claudine Gay bit the dust not because the white supremacist crowd turned against her, but because her own erstwhile friends and supporters did so. She became an embarrassment, so she had to go. That leads to the obvious question: when will it be Joe Biden's turn to suffer the same fate?
No, Magill was not attacked for racial reasons. It appears the Board of Trustees at Penn put more pressure on her because a major business school donor was immediately pulling substantial funding from the business school. Gay was attacked racially.
ReplyDeleteNicholas, you label Gay's articles as deeply flawed. What was it about the *substance* of her articles that made them deeply flawed? Yes, there were instances where in describing *processes* and *definitions* her writing was close to other authors. Two things about that, though. First, there are a very limited number of ways to describe processes, such as the statistical process Gay was describing in one of her articles, so, of course, the writing will be similar. Second, with one exception, all the authors who responded to queries as to whether Gay plagiarized from them said she had not, and did not consider it plagiarism. The exception was academic has-been Carol Swain, who should have been pleased that someone thought something she wrote was worth plagiarizing.
There were no instances dredged up during this academic lynching of Gay that demonstrated her "plagiarism" was substantive -- that it, she did not rip off anyone's ideas as her own.
Ray to Rod
DeleteI see you surfaced again. Okay, fine. Was it specifically because of the issue on Gay?
At the end of the day, all of this is nothing but an exercise in "intellectual masturbation."
I'm willing to bet that a substantial percentage of The American People even know who she (Gay) is, or even give a damn about all of the problems surrounding her situation, if they did.
What a tough life she has! Let me shed some tears. How about you. You must be sad too. Even though she resigned her presidency of that Leftist academic sewer (Harvard), she still teaches as a professor, and at $900, 000 a year, as I understand.
Yeah! I'm sure the "average" American with bills to pay, and trying to survive, are just heart-broken over the Gay tragedy.
To put it in crude terms, who gives a f*k!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Since Rod chooses not to address me directly I'll presume to reply to his criticism through you. Expressed racial animus toward Ms Gay is reprehensible but it was most certainly not among the compelling reasons for her downfall. Her equivocal public stance about the detestable antisemitism clearly demonstrated at Harvard is beneath reproach. For that alone she had to go. As a result of the outrage she generated the plagiarism charges arose. She was an affirmative action hire; how else could she conceivably have been thought to be qualified? Affirmative action has been creditably and widely criticized, not from racial hostility but for its demonstrated injustice. It has also been attacked, sometimes by courageously heretic minority members for being counterproductive and patronizing for minorities and women. Actually, implying that " an affirmative action hire" is code for for racial animus is itself code for an accusation of "microaggression" . That term is another of the touchstone words the left employs to effect automatic condemnation of any who dare to doubt their wisdom and justice. Its meant to intimidate and work a summary end to dialogue.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteGood post. Always so ironic that Harvard was originally for the training of Christian ministers back in the 17th Century, and now it exists for the indoctrination of young minds by a faculty of Marxist oriented professors. For the most part, what is being peddled by The Left at Harvard is pretty much true of many many other institutions of "higher learning" throughout the nation.
For example my old alma mater out on the West (Left) Coast was founded by a Baptist minister in the 19th Century, and is now a beacon of Woke, Cancel College, and DEI directed by Leftist professors. Much smaller than Harvard, but still thriving to brain-wash vulnerable youth. Their student newspaper certainly reflects it.
Ray to Jack
DeleteCORRECTION Should read Cancel Culture.
Rod from Jack: My bad; I overlooked your direction of your initial comment to me. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteRod from Jack: Also, in your initial comment you courteously expressed creditable points. I appreciate them.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy et al from Jack: Apparently some in the MSM have decided that plagiarism disastrously presents conservatives with a new powerful weapon against " progressives". Well! Can it be that those on the left have hidden this dark secret, their infamous comprehensive indulgence in this vice? Do they see then in its recent revelation prospective catastrophe? Now then, let us fire up the plagiarism seeking software and send it into battle! Our cause is assured! Ah but, in this parody I do forget the far left's "sensitivity" to slights however , well, slight.
ReplyDeleteRay from Jack: Thanx. Yeah Harvard deserves the scourging it is getting and more, many more sanctions for its continuing failure to deal the rank antisemites in its "student" body summary expulsion . Harvard"s accreditatioin should be put at immediate hazard should its coddling of neonazis continue.
ReplyDeleteRod, I find your views on Gay incredible. Have you seen the passages that she lifted from others' works? Sometimes she didn't change a thing. Sometimes a word or two. You would give your students a pass on that? Maybe recommend them for the presidency of Harvard? Gimme a break. Yes, there are WORSE ways to plagiarize. I don't deny that. But shouldn't the bar for a star academic (which she was) be set rather high? You say she was attacked "racially". Again, every public figure is attacked "racially" at one point or another. Who decides if ALL the attacks against someone can be brushed aside as racist humbug, or just some of them? Well, that's obvious -- you do. You and people like you. Very comforting! And let me ask this: if Claudine Gay was the victim of a "lynching", then why on Earth did she resign??? And why on Earth was her resignation accepted? Not exactly a profile in courage, if the battle here is between the Children of Light and the Ultra-Nazis...
ReplyDeleteRay is right that this whole kerfuffle signifies very little for the average American...and not much for Harvard either. Gay is eminently replaceable.
Good point, Jack. Technically, all minority and female hires are "affirmative action hires", meaning only that a system that requires the consideration of qualified minority and women candidates was in operation. It's the ABUSE of the affirmative action system to rig the hiring process in favor of protected classes that's the problem -- and it's a widespread problem! As Rod well knows, it's why standardized tests are about to bite the dust. They make reverse discrimination difficult to operationalize -- or at least uncomfortable, and we all know how lefties hate to be discomfited.
Ray, you find it ironic that institutions founded on Christian principles have been converted to neo-Marxist dogma, but is it that ironic? Both religions -- if I may use that term loosely -- are capable of wide interpretation and almost limitless intolerance. Christianity has evolved in a kinder, gentler direction. So, I suppose, has Marxism, but it has also become more insidious for that.
Jack, don't hold your breath for Harvard's accreditation to be jeopardized. The only schools that are in that boat are the ones that refuse to jump on the DEI bandwagon. DEI "values" and benchmarks are now mandatory in higher ed. Genocide is more of a gray area.
Nicholas, again, not all plagiarism is the same. A number of instances Gay was involved with had similarities with other authors in terms of describing processes and definitions. None of those authors contacted believed Gay committed plagiarism. I personally think that while her violations were technical and unintentional, Gay should have been more careful and diligent.
ReplyDeleteNow, that is very different from the plagiarism that Neri Oxman, wife of major Claudine Gay critic Bill Ackman, engaged in with her dissertation. She plagiarized multiple times from Wikipedia! No wonder Bill Ackman feels he knows so much about plagiarists -- he sleeps with one!
I teach my students to avoid any type of plagiarism, in part because standards differ across institutions and even across professors. If students make errors that are technical and sloppy, we review that, and I show them how not to do that again. If a student copies and pastes substantial material without attribution, then I flunk the assignment, and warn them the next time that I would report them to academic affairs. The worst example was a student who actually copied three pages of a journal article of which I was a the lead author.
RAY TO ROD
DeleteHope the Street People everywhere in our nation are following this academic event with the greatest interest. I'm sure they realize how important it is for their lives.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I would suggest that neomarxism, were it to achieve totalitarian power would use it as murderously as did 20th century marxist "things' . Mao (a librarian ), Pol Pot (a Sorbonne student I think) and even hell hound Stalin (as a young seminary student) were once nominally human until they acquired total power. William Ayres and Bernardine Dohrn are actually considered good company by people with whom I am acquainted. Barack Obama thinks they are just peachy.(When Ayres was welcomed at my school, SUNY New Paltz, I tore up my degree and sent it to the college president; his appearance was a cynical misuse of a taxpayer supported campus). Jane Fonda would very probably "exercise" such sway for dictatorial oppression. Hillary Clinton as President could have gone on the man hating vindictive rampage which has apparently been her longtime cherished dream.A good many '60s style new left survivors would abandon pusillanimous humanity with relish, had they the means to force their smoky dreams on us. I've read that a recording of a new left conclave featured discussion of the execution of 20,000,000 patriots and the establishment of reeducation camps in the southwest! I do not doubt that such dialogue is rife in the airy salons of today's far left.
ReplyDeleteRod from Jack: I would endorse a comment I read which held that , plagiarist or not, Ms Gay demonstrated an academic sloppyness entirely inappropriate for one in such a traditionally exalted position for which a very distinguished record, be it managerial, academic or otherwise highly professional, is to expected.
ReplyDeleteRod, I'm glad to hear that you take plagiarism seriously in your own classes. Frankly, I'm not inclined to take a "one-strike-and-you're-out" approach either. From what I hear, the burden is essentially on professors to prove that students knowingly and maliciously plagiarized, and, if we can't, little or nothing is likely to happen to them. My department chair told me that no student has EVER, to her knowledge, been expelled for academic dishonesty. So, in short, it's very likely that today's students cheat and engage in sloppy attribution, if there's any at all, because experience has taught them that they will get away with it. And experience, unfortunately in this case, is a good teacher. Bottom line: plagiarism, in itself, need not doom anyone. With Dr. Gay, there were additional factors. She WAS targeted, but then standing up to such attacks is part of the job too, if we're to be realistic.
ReplyDeleteJack, the Left has the potential to be murderous. Of course, so does the right. What would or could trigger a bloodbath? A civil war, which is much discussed these days, easily could. Given the lack of clear geographical boundaries between red and blue areas, the potential for ethnic cleansing and worse is enormous. As I've said before, though, my guess is that actual violent resistance to an American dictatorship, of either persuasion, would be minimal -- and easily vilified and contained. I don't see a NEED for a potential American dictator to kill millions, but, as history has taught us, that doesn't mean he won't do it anyway. What need was there for Hitler and Stalin and Mao to kill all their victims? None. Paranoia suffices.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Nazism has been defeated and irrevocably cast into the gutter; they are the far right. But the marxist far left has infected our national life grievously, in many very consequential settings, including our White House. Totalitarian violence from them may consequently be a distinct possibility.
ReplyDelete. . . characteristic totalitarian violence" I should say.
ReplyDeleteJack, all I know is that, when the right had the golden opportunity to pack the court, or add new states, or censor the media, or strike Democrats off the ballot, in 2017-2019, controlling, as it did, the presidency, Congress, AND the Supreme Court, it didn't even cross our minds to do so. That tells you everything you need to know about who poses the REAL totalitarian menace.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Ditto, with verve.
ReplyDelete