“Context” is a tired abstract word used way too often without much thought just because it sounds impressive. Eschew it, @Chekov !
Can’t spell “context” without spelling “con”.
I enjoy comparing commenters views on this to where they (or their kids) attended.
G-d bless you and gesundheit!
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I should have cited it properly. Mea culpa.
Don’t worry, you can always go back and correct it decades later.
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The attacks on understanding context are both typical and telling.
Fundamental fairness requires we treat similarly situated people similarly. To fail to do so creates a double standard. But is also a double standard to treat differently situated people similarly. One size doesn’t fit all, especially with something like the accusation of plagiarism, where the definition is so broad so as to cover a minor citation error to the wholesale theft of the entirety of another person’s work.
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That’s exactly the problem at Harvard. Their president has transgressed far beyond the academic honesty violations that would get a first-year student suspended for a multiple semesters.
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This isn’t true, even by the description of the guidebook you provided.
If I am wrong about this, then it should be simple enough show me evidence that violations like this one (the first offered in this thread) would result in suspension for multiple semesters.
Curious to me that people keep referring to these different or double standards by citing the Crimson article posted earlier but conveniently ignore the most important aspect. For convenience I shall re-quote:
" “In a six-year high, 27 students were forced to withdraw from Harvard College during the 2020-2021 academic year [when Dr. Gay was Dean of the HarvardFaculty of Arts and Sciences] due to academic dishonesty, according to a report released this month.
The Honor Council heard a total of 138 academic integrity cases during the school year…
Ninety-nine of the 138 reviewed cases resulted in a finding of responsibility, meaning that an academic dishonesty violation did occur. According to the report, students who are forced to withdraw must be employed in a full-time, paid, non-academic job for at least six months before they can petition for readmission to Harvard. The length of withdrawal is usually between two to four terms.
An additional 56 students were put on probation, a notice from the College that future violations may lead to more serious consequences. Another 10 students were admonished, a warning that falls short of probation. The Honor Council referred six students for a local sanction, meaning the faculty member leading the course decides the appropriate disciplinary action — for example, a grade penalty or mandatory tutoring.“"
I count the following different punishments:
-withdrawal for 4 terms
-withdrawal for 2 terms
-withdrawal for some period between 2 and 4 terms
-probation
-admonishing without probation
-local sanction
That’s at least 4 different outcomes if you want to lump all withdrawals together.
It’s almost like, gosh I don’t know, that there are in fact different ways of treating different degrees of the issue.
Some people are just immune to nuance I suppose.
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The Vulcan doesn’t need me to explain… but since there seems to be some confusion I’ll spell it out.
“The attacks on understanding context are both typical and telling.”
IT WAS A JOKE people… quoting Gay’s own words BACK to her, when she told Congress that calling for genocide of Jews might or might not be against Harvard’s code of behavior depending on the context.
We aren’t attacking context. We are having some fun at her expense… the notion that calling for genocide requires context is absurd…
Sorry Vulcan, continue…
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It is striking that nearly 3/4 of the student cases reviewed that year resulted in this finding, yet Harvard’s perfunctory investigation of their president—that and investigation done in an ad hoc manner that didn’t follow their own adopted guidelines and procedures—somehow didn’t, despite dozens of examples in her record of clear-cut egregious plagiarizing.
And your accounting doesn’t even mention the largest group; students who made mistakes that were so minor and inconsequential that they didn’t even trigger a suspicion of “academic dishonesty” so as to require a report to a dean. The examples of Dr. Gay’s alleged plagiarism fit squarely in this group.
First, some are most definitely attacking context, jokes can have messages too.
Second, it wasn’t absurd, because the question was about calls for “intifada” and “from the river to the sea” which the bully (Stefanik) defined as genocide. Calls for “intifada” and chants of “from the river to the sea” are contextual. They aren’t calls always genocide, despite Stefanik’s bullying. Watch the entirety of the clip.
That’s because the only cases that are considered are those where there was a suspicion of “academic dishonesty” so as to justify a report to the dean and subsequent investigation. Most citations errors and minor mistakes do NOT raise the suspicion of academic dishonesty and therefor do not trigger a report or an investigation.
A professor who noticed the “plagiarism” I citied above would tell the student something like, “your attribution is improper. Fix it.” And that would be the end of it.
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Can “context” be used to defend other despicable phrases? Or only “certain “ ones ? Hmmmmm.
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What’s striking is that you’re comparing a data set for which we have zero information other than the outcomes, which as I’ve already pointed out reflect a fairly wide range.
Tell you what. Show me the list of all the issues in the 138 cases cited in the article so we can assess them against the many different degrees of punishment and lack thereof, and also compare them to what Gay did, okay? Ohhhhhhhhh. We can’t do that. And yet you’ve already decided what the punishment for Gay should be, and that there’s a double standard.
Hmmm. Striking indeed.
ETA: I’ll say no more as it’s obvious that you’ve made up your mind.
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Show me the list of all the issues in the 138 cases cited in the article so we can assess them against the many different degrees of punishment and lack thereof, and also compare them to what Gay did, okay? Ohhhhhhhhh. We can’t do that. And yet you’ve already decided what the punishment for Gay should be, and that there’s a double standard.
To be honest, we can debate ‘double standards’ all day long and whether there is a double standard or not. Congress is investigating this I believe as they’ve requested the data on this so we’ll find out soon enough whether double standards were in place or not. There’s really no point debating this until the investigation releases its findings - they’ll have access to the data unlike me or anyone else on this board so we’ll just go around in circles without it.
Regardless of the findings of the congressional investigation which will be released in due course, Harvard’s president should be held to a much higher standard than the average student I would argue.
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As someone who works in the frontlines of university writing instruction, I agree with this 100%. The person knows exactly what they are doing.
A first-year undergrad who, for whatever reason, isn’t cognizant of the seriousness of this and who has not yet learned how to paraphrase properly might be forgiven for an offense or two (or maybe not, we don’t have discovery of the case details of Harvard’s academic honesty violation punishments to know the minimum bar for their punishments).
But a doctoral candidate or professor? They can’t claim ignorance. It’s pure intention combined with a lack of willingness to put in effort and disregard for standards of academic integrity.
Here’s a textbook example that mtmind helpfully provided:
- the ripped-off sentence isn’t even cited. The subsequent one is. However, citations are required to be sentence-by sentence (or for the source to be clearly indicated by other means).
- Gay added one word to the entire sentence to try to change it from a direct quote (intentionality)
- in this example she at least cited the source nearby her stolen sentence. There are many, many examples where she didn’t even bother to do that.
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In different contexts the same “phrase” may be despicable, or not. The only thing that makes “from the river to the sea” despicable is context.
Gotta love when the same people claiming there shouldn’t be a double standard, then turn around and argue that the there should be a double standard; one for graduate students/profs and lesser standard for undergrads. The latter is an admission that the former doesn’t exist.
It’s a double standard double standard.
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Gotta love when the same people claiming there is a double standard and that’s bad, then turn around and argue that the there should be a double standard; one for graduate students/profs and lesser standard for undergrads.
If you’re referring to me, I’ve never once argued that Claudine Gay should resign for any ‘double standard’ reasoning or otherwise so not sure how I’m the ‘same people’ here.
I think she should resign because she’s lost the trust of the American public and donors + justifying antisemitism, not because of any ‘double standard reasoning’.
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You just posted . . .
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