Plenty of stuff happening recently, but I want to spend a few minutes on the Harvard/Gay situation.
There is an old principle of leadership that says that leaders should apply the same rules to themselves as they do to those they lead. Yet as we look at the Harvard debacle, we see clearly that Gay has an entirely different set of rules than Harvard students. Yet somehow the narrative is that she was forced to resign because she was black.
Given the fact that Biden is president, we can conclude that plagiarism is not a big deal to the APL. Yet students are still punished for it. The real issue should be the fact that Harvard was so intent on making their president fit certain demographic boxes, that they didn't actually do any due diligence on their anointed candidate. The fact that Harvard continued to remain committed to the double standard certainly didn't help, and the fact that Gay couldn't or wouldn't state explicitly that calling for the genocide of Jews ran afoul of Harvard's standards has somehow gotten lost in the charges of racism.
What I find most disturbing is that gay will retain her position as a professor, at roughly $900,000 per year, despite the fact that she plagiarized a significant portion of her minimal academic output. This hardly sounds like a punishment. Of course this ignores the reality that unqualified professors are making obscene salaries, while students rack up hideous amounts of student debt because they've been brainwashed into believing that a Harvard education is worth a ridiculous amount of debt. I'm not even going to spend a plot of time on their @billion dollar endowment which somehow manages to remain untaxed.
It seems like Harvard needs to go back and vet every one of it's professors and deal with any others who are guilty of plagiarism, quickly. They won't, but they really should.
4 comments:
I think the plagiarism angle is actually more important than the failure to criticize anti-Semitism. Not that hating on Jews is OK, because it isn't. But the plagiarism issue shines a light on the modern progressive routine of putting skin color over merit. An appointment/hiring based solely on merit would have made the Jew-hating far less likely, because actual intelligent people don't hate on the basis of race or identity...as is common of the modern progressive and always has been. Actual intelligent people don't steal the work of others and sign their names to it in order to advance their situation. I have no problem with expelling kids who plagiarize. But their skin color shouldn't mitigate that crime or the punishment for it, as has been the case with Gay.
As to her "punishment", it was my understanding that she stepped down (because...you know...RAAAACISM!!!). How does one quite a job and still get paid? Because of...you know...racism of the left.
I agree that the plagiarism angle is the bigger deal. The fact that Harvard chose to elevate someone who engaged in what amounts to theft (much like the SBC has been soft on plagiarism as well) to the role of president tells us that Harvard values academic integrity less than checking a DEI box. I'd be willing to bet that there are plenty of Harvard faculty who's publications contain plagiarized passages.
The fact that her "punishment" is a $900,000/year job for which plagiarism should still be disqualifying, stretches the meaning of punishment. It'd be so awesome to take a class from her and plagiarize extensively, what could she do?
Yes, the narrative is that this is all about racism, which amounts to the APL endorsing plagiarism for BIPOCS.
I've seen a couple of instances where some leftist commentator denied she plagiarized while in giving their description of what she did, they perfectly described plagiarism. Once again we see the left redefining words and terms for their benefit.
Absolutely. They're applying a different standard to her because of the DEI boxes she checks, and excusing what amounts to theft. Ultimately this seems to reinforce the suspicion about blacks in certain positions being AA hires. Which ends up causing more harm than anything else.
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