agree to disagree
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I find it troubling when any academic has multiple instances of academic dishonesty (and admitting that this newest instance is still TBD in my book). I donāt think anyone should get a pass because of their area of study, background, prominence, etc.
I will say, however, that if people were going to seriously comb through academicsā work, I wish that they would do it for people across the spectrum of possibilities, and not just target a select few. Sadly, I suspect that there would be academics of various political/racial/dogmatic stripes that would fail a close examination of their work. At the moment, only one political ideology is doing the digging.
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So we should expand the digging. There are certainly resources to do so.
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Business Insider did an investigation into Bill Ackmanās wife following his attacks on Harvard.
I think the reason thereās less focus on conservative academics by liberal media is because the majority of academics at T10 schools are liberal so they have no incentive to investigate. Are any presidents of T10 schools considered conservative?
And if theyāre not in a prominent position at a T10 school, no one really cares enough to investigate even if they did plagiarize. Does anyone care if someone at Liberty University plagiarized? Probably not.
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With computers now, I donāt think it is that hard to check. Posters who claim this activity is commonplace should have no trouble coming up with suppprting evidence ( though then the question is why are students punished for it?)
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I think there are so few prominent conservative leaders at T10 schools so of course itās not going to be even-handed when one side barely even exists.
And even if there are a couple, what are the chances they actually plagiarized? For all we know, there couldāve been investigations behind the scenes that resulted in nothing.
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I am not suggesting researching by political agenda. If the problematic citation issue is as common and professionally accepted as some claim, there should be 50 professors at Harvard with a similar issue. Are there? Or is this behavior truly outside academic norms?
The kerfuffle at Harvard results from a couple of decades of discomfort with what the DEI organization and associated professors have done at Harvard. This discomfort is shared by a number of (admittedly middle-aged) faculty members I have spoken with. It came to a head when Harvard could tell students that ācisheterosexism,ā āfatphobiaā and āusing the wrong pronounsā qualified as āabuseā and perpetuated āviolenceā on campus but could not say that calls for the genocide of Jews (generally and by implication at Harvard) were abuse or perpetuated violence. In the past, criticisms of DEI programs would have gotten one labeled as racist or sexist or homophobic whether the criticisms were well-founded or in fact racist, sexist or homophobic (some criticisms no doubt are).
The Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer is not an academic (though it appears from the article that she once was). Iām less worried about the quality of her scholarship. Iām much more worried about her ideological slant.
And, the attack by the Beacon and Rufo is clearly political. They are both pretty low grade. The fact that they are landing is because there is deep discomfort with the implementation of DEI at Harvard (and many other institutions). A former professor at another university, who is quite liberal and a primary donor to a charitable organization that helps underprivileged families, mostly BIPOC, said some DEI programs appear to be āreparations on steroids.ā
@Momof242729, in my mind, the best response is not to throw out the message because the messenger is low grade, but to reflect on the underlying problem and try to fix it. My academic friends are unfortunately pessimistic about the chances of a significant reform of the DEI unit at Harvard.
On a related front, Sam Lessin, a San Francisco VC that I have worked with, is running as an outside candidate for Harvardās Board of Overseers. He is concerned about the state of Harvard overall and particularly the DEI programs and the process by which the Corporation board vetted Claudine Gay. He has invested in a number of human capital related business (HR tech, I think they called it). Mark Zuckerberg had a press conferenc supporting Lessin. It is actually very hard to get on the ballot as a candidate not nominated through the insider politics. So, if there are any alums who would be interested in helping him get on the ballot, DM me and I will share information.
There is apparently another candidate, Julia Pollak, who is also trying to get nominated. I donāt know her but will be looking her up.
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I would be perfectly happy with a different professional background for the DEI chief so long as he/she had professional integrity-could be a nurse for example, but there shouldnt be any questions about their nursing qualifications or performance. Adherence to some professional standards, in any profession, should be required. I assume this position preferred an academic doctorate, which seems in doubt now.
I wish the alumni the best of luck in their efforts.
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Why would a university require a DEI person to have objectively strong qualifications in a non-DEI field, academic or otherwise? After all, one of the core tenets of DEI is that merit is a concept of white supremacy and should therefore be subjugated to āequity,ā which attempts to equalize outcomes regardless of merit. I think a lot of folks think of DEI personnel as just another kind of college administrator, interested in increasing the presence and feeling of belonging of certain historically marginalized groups. If this were true, merit might matter. More accurate, I think, to think of them as a modern form of the KGB, at universities to help brainwash the students and enforce compliance among those who resist their ideology. Whether or not their political science dissertation was any good? Who cares?
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I donāt think Harvard is going to suffer from any of these scandals. IMO, itās pretty much untouchable. All colleges have scandals, but Harvard is a popular whipping boy.
Plagiarism is wrong, but Iām fed up with all these plagiarism stories. Especially about URM academics. Do we need to destroy peopleās reputations? This is a tip of an iceberg for many academics, of all colors. There are probably a lot of people changing their underpants frequently these days. Is she good at her job? Thatās what matters.
Hereās another headline associated with Harvard: Activist who led ouster of Harvard president linked to āscientific racismā journal | The far right | The Guardian
Frankly, I think Christopher Rufo and his āscientific racismā theories are more of a threat to society. Letās go after this guy and his stupid racist fearmongering. No surprise he was one of DeSantisā cronies appointed to the board of New College, FL.
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We could go after both, right? It is too much to expect that the nationās premier college isnāt employing academic cheaters as leaders? That encompasses white professors too.
If all you care about is whether she is good at her job, and not her integrity, why does Harvard have standards for its students at all? Isnt integrity part of the job?
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Then letās devise a fair way to figure out who to go after. Not by starting with skin color.
Or maybe we look at the body of work as a whole and give someone credit for doing a good job, not just look for evidence of wrongdoing. I donāt have a solution, but I know racism is behind this.
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Agreed, we can start with the Harvard faculty as a whole. It isnt that hard. I expect some work has already been conducted.
Lying about your qualifications and/or cheating isnāt later overcome by just ādoing a good jobā. That just incentivizes that type of behavior.
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Why start with Harvard? Why not start with Yale, UC Berkeley, or any other famous college. Draw names out of a hat, of all academics, to ensure fairness. Not sure who will fund this venture, but hopefully a neutral, non-racist group. Wondering why no white guys are being mentioned yet.
I donāt condone it. Of course, itās wrong to cite incorrectly. But Iām going to posit that at one time, almost every college educated person has plagiarized at least some little thing/incorrectly cited something at one point in their academic career. I probably took small chunks of something, sometime back in the 80ās and maybe didnāt cite it properly. Was I aware of it? Probably not. I am sure many people do it all the time without being aware there is a name for it. Nowadays, we can run things through checkers and resolve it before we hand it in.
The bigger question is, was she actively stealing large amounts of material and claiming it as original research? Because that is more than plagiarism. Thatās theft. Thatās definitely not cool. I havenāt read the whole article. It seems the gist of it is that she failed to properly cite her husbandās work. Not sure she deserves to be tarred and feathered for that.
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I think the allegation is that she essentially copied his dissertation. We will see if it is borne out.
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The white guy formerly leading Stanford had to resign for plagiarism or lack of academic integrity, whatever it was.
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Good, letās see them go after more white guys, and everyone else. Not just people of color.
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There are, and have been such efforts, for those paying attention. Harvard put Prof. Francesca Gino on unpaid leave for falsification of data.
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If I recall, Gay was once in charge of their DEI program, so this is just an offshoot of that effort. Many donors have had it with DEI. I assume that if the head of Harvardās DEI program was an old white guy they would gone after him. 
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