Did anyone else read this? One of the most bizarre stories ever. A Harvard Law School professor is the victim of a four-year con. And he teaches a class called “Judgment and Decision-Making.”
https://www.thecut.com/2019/07/bruce-hay-paternity-trap-maria-pia-shuman-mischa-haider.html
Wow—very weird sequence of events.
Another fine Harvard professor. And Harvard handling it in the worst way possible.
OMG.
What a disturbing story. It reminds me of the catphishing scandal involving Mante Teo when he was a college football player. How can someone keep trusting abusive and manipulative people? And give them their laptop and passwords???
Side note to @greenwitch . We met Mante Teo 5 years ago at a restaurant in Santa Monica. I had read about him, but wouldn’t have had any idea who he was. My 20 year old did, though and approached him for a pic, which he graciously did. Nice guy!
Continuing along the side-thread, my relative who attended college with Mante Teo at Norte Dame said he seemed very nice.
Sad that people target nice folks and take advantage of them. I guess the choose targets carefully.
If the bad guys choose their targets carefully, regular people who could become targets need to choose their friends very carefully.
yowza. Sure he’s gullible - but those women are awful…
Ugh, that was so bad I couldn’t even finish the article!
Wow, that was a long read!!! Bizarre.
One of the most bizarre things I’ve read recently. One small compromise and misplaced act of trust after another and pretty soon everybody is through the looking glass into sicko land.
In addition to being fascinating in its own right, this case has become a Rorschach blot of our times. It’s intriguing to see the variety of interpretations in internet commentary and what they reveal about the bias of the beholder. Different groups are spinning this as a cautionary tale about (fill in the blank)–ivory tower elitism, the arrogance of academia, clueless professors, Harvard, identity politics, the disruption of gender identity, liberals, Title IX, and whatever else. A tale of our era–whatever this is.
@oldschooldad I agree with that interpretation. Indeed, Ross Douthat had an op-ed in the NYT about exactly that a few days ago.
Here’s a conundrum: If the Bruce Hay character had been a woman, we’d all agree she was a victim. That she was emotionally abused. That women in abusive relationships lose their sense of self and have a difficult time extricating themselves.
But Bruce Hay is a man. Most of the commentary has been along the lines of, What a clueless guy! What’s wrong with him? How can he be so naive?
Does he deserve the same benefit of the doubt that a woman in an emotionally abusive relationship would get?
A lawyer, any lawyer, should know that he didn’t need to sign for the rental units ‘for insurance purposes’ for someone else’s rental. It appears that when a competent lawyer, his ex spouse, took over things got cleared up pretty quickly.
And why is this a Title IX issue? The women didn’t attend Harvard. Harvard doesn’t owe them any Title IX rights. It is merely a domestic issue and no one had even filed a civil matter. Does Harvard turn everything into a Title IX investigation?
The trans woman was a graduate student at Harvard, in physics, as I understand it.
^Yup. One of the con artists was a grad student (in physics, not law) and collaborated with the professor on some articles. Given what we’ve seen about the professor’s judgment, I would not be surprised if there are some other Title IX issues that we don’t know about. But who knows. See: Tangled, web we weave.
Bizarre it is! You can’t make these things up, nobody would have believed you! Smh.
I feel sorry for the guy, but if I were the Prof’s ex, I would part with him for good. He is a hazard to the family’s emotional and financial well-being. It sounds like he needs therapy.
I have no sympathy for him. And now I’m wondering if I would have sympathy if it were a woman who so willingly got involved-- not just involved, but complicit (in that he followed their requests for greater and greater access, beyond what should have seemed reasonable. )
I suspect there are some issues with him, deeper than depression, that made him such a poor judge- not just of them, but of his own actions.
His ex-wife seems to have the brains and judgment. At one point, she’s described as a wary type. Beats gullible. The old expression is, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”)
And yet the woman stuck with him, I guess “for the sake of the children.” Children are better off in a stable family. Even if it has only one parent.