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2nd January 2024, 06:35 PM | #1 |
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Claudine Gay resigns as Harvard President
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I expect two things are true in this case. Was she targeted for racial abuse? Yes, almost certainly. Was she guilty of plagiarism? Yes. If you look at some of the passages that appear in her work, she blatantly used the exact same wording as papers that she cited but without using quotations. She clearly gave the impression that the words were hers and thus used other people's work without proper attribution. It has been pointed out that students have been kicked out of Harvard for doing exactly what she has done, so it makes no sense to allow her to remain as president of the university. As a person who grades student work, albeit students writing in a second language, I have had seen plenty of examples like this, usually in a first draft because my job is to teach students who to write gooder, and then I would tell them to change it. If they still decided to submit work which was blatantly using other people's words as their own, then they would receive a zero for the assignment. |
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2nd January 2024, 07:15 PM | #2 |
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Almost certainly exactly the opposite. Despite disgracing herself and her university at the congressional campus antisemitism hearings and having repeatedly committed plagiarism, the Harvard Board voted initially to retain her. That was what was almost certainly racially motivated. In contrast, Penn's president, Elizabeth Magill, who is white, who didn't commit plagiarism, but who equally embarrassed herself and her University at the hearings, resigned under pressure. |
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2nd January 2024, 07:29 PM | #3 |
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Bigoted thief of intellectual property.
Good riddance. |
2nd January 2024, 07:36 PM | #4 |
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I'm not saying Harvard racially abused her. The racial abuse which did happen apparently was sent to the university in emails and phone calls.
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2nd January 2024, 07:38 PM | #5 |
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2nd January 2024, 07:45 PM | #6 |
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Imagine how many hard working, actually accomplished, totally ethical DEI candidates were passed over for this job.
Or, if you can stomach it, imagine that Gay was the most presentable of these candidates. And imagine how much pressure Harvard must have been under, to hire such a candidate. Maybe it's the people who hired Gay to who should resign. Maybe it's the people who pushed DEI in spite of its predicted failure modes and the people harmed - not least Gay herself - that we should be calling out as villains. |
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2nd January 2024, 07:51 PM | #7 |
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2nd January 2024, 10:02 PM | #8 |
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She apparently even plagiarized her acknowledgements page, which is sort of bizarre, if you think about it (although she did change the names).
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2nd January 2024, 10:46 PM | #9 |
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Imagine how many hard working, actually accomplished, ethical candidates, judged on the merit of their accomplishments without regard to the color of their skin were passed over for the job. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. —Martin Luther King, Jr. |
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2nd January 2024, 11:28 PM | #10 |
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3rd January 2024, 12:42 AM | #11 |
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This is a fascinating cancellation. She cancelled a black professor who explained the police are fair when shooting whites and blacks.
Of course Candace Owens and Amalia Ekpunobi are unsure if their children or themselves are white or black. |
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3rd January 2024, 03:34 AM | #12 |
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3rd January 2024, 07:14 AM | #13 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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3rd January 2024, 07:19 AM | #14 |
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Gay probably has a bright career ahead of her in politics, I expect she'll be fine. Plagiarism has never really been disqualifying in that field. But a whole lot of people sold on the false promises of DEI won't be.
ETA: Oh, and she won't be leaving Harvard. She's stepping down as president, but she's still a professor there. Likely still pulling in a hefty salary as well. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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3rd January 2024, 08:18 AM | #15 |
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OK, this is funny. If you put Gay's resignation letter text into Grammarly, it flags it as plagiarized. Try it for yourself with the below links and make of it what you will.
Resignation letter text Grammarly plagiarism checker |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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3rd January 2024, 08:31 AM | #16 |
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I'm not sure how Grammarly works as I don't have it installed, but if it's like most plagiarism checkers it would just flag anything that matches stuff published online, which the resignation letter obviously was, or stuff previously added to its database. You'd need to know what it was matching with to interpret it correctly.
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3rd January 2024, 08:39 AM | #17 |
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I would have been shocked if this wasn't the case. In the age of easy anonymous communication, that's more the norm than not.
That is the funniest bit really, I'm mean, why? That's funny. Plagiarism has really only caused the cancelation of the up and coming, the already established do fine. Honestly, the sadest thing about all of this, Harvard legit has a double standard for plagerism for staff vs students. Students, its a hard out, Staff it was always a meh, that's a shame probably shouldn't do it. Notes on Harvard that are amusing. How do you know if someone went to harvard? Don't worry, they'll tell you. Allegedly a quote by Thomas Sowell, the best thing about going to Harvard, you'll never again be impressed by anyone that went to Harvard. I have a cousin that wen to Yale, she's quite bright but that seems to be despite her education, I'll never again be impressed by someone that went to Yale. |
3rd January 2024, 09:51 AM | #18 |
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Hot take by the Associated Press:
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3rd January 2024, 09:58 AM | #19 |
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"initiatives that make colleges more welcoming to students of color"
If hiring an underqualified, unethical person of color makes colleges more welcoming to students of color, then we should probably take a long hard look at where these students are coming from, and why that is what makes them feel more welcome. Maybe the AP can do some investigative journalism on that topic. |
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3rd January 2024, 10:15 AM | #20 |
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Liberal, black, woman, and Gay. Gonna be a tough quadfecta to beat.
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3rd January 2024, 11:11 AM | #21 |
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3rd January 2024, 11:32 AM | #22 |
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"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" -Mark Twain "Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all" -Rosencrantz, on Hamlet |
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3rd January 2024, 12:07 PM | #23 |
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There is a special place in hell for people who misappropriate that line.
She messed up. She needed to go for the plagiarism. Hell, she should have been drummed out of academia for even trying it. Her performance at that hearing was bad. She should have been better prepared to deal with dumb right-wing trolls. She gave a lawyer's answer that was based on the idea of dealing with another mature adult acting in good faith. They all should have known better. and now a bunch of tiki torch waving ************* are going to act like they aren't anti-Semitic and celebrate this as some kind of "win". |
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3rd January 2024, 12:10 PM | #24 |
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3rd January 2024, 12:15 PM | #25 |
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I like her leap from "the school received some racially abusive messages" to "I was racially abused."
More like, "the admin who answers the phone and the grad student who filters my email were racially abused." Which would have been a fine and noble reason to step down: to protect those who work with you and for you. |
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3rd January 2024, 12:16 PM | #26 |
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3rd January 2024, 12:23 PM | #27 |
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Whenever I hear of a case like this I think of the policy of selecting musicians via Blind auditionWPs.
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Not applicable to all competitions but something to strive for. |
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3rd January 2024, 12:30 PM | #28 |
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How is that misappropriated?
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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3rd January 2024, 12:33 PM | #29 |
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3rd January 2024, 12:39 PM | #30 |
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Blind auditions are now being attacked from the left, because while they select the best musicians, they don't select a properly "diverse" group of musicians. It's now the left which is explicitly in favor of racial discrimination over meritocracy.
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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3rd January 2024, 12:49 PM | #31 |
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I don't think a university president's job --particularly of a large and famous institution like Harvard -- is analogous to a musician's job. Surely the former is largely about PR and academic (and actual) politics? In such a position race, appearance, sexuality, background, all of that stuff may well indeed matter to the work.
Unless presidents of Harvard teach classes and do academic research? Do they? Did this lady pop into the lecture hall and teach students? Spends her evenings grading papers? I suspect the job was more about expense account lunches with potential donors and attending fancy parties. Representing the university as [insert all your possible groups here] might well indeed be a part of the job. |
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3rd January 2024, 12:51 PM | #32 |
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For starters, it is an aspirational quote. Second, we are nowhere near that time where a person isn't based on the color of their skin. Its being used here to celebrate taking down a black woman.
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3rd January 2024, 12:51 PM | #33 |
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3rd January 2024, 12:53 PM | #34 |
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Resolved.
Next item: anonymous resumes and CVs, for first- or second-round screening of applicants. After that we can figure out what to do in cases where the unqualified applicant is being recommended via a personal network and thus bypasses the anonymous screening rounds. |
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3rd January 2024, 12:53 PM | #35 |
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3rd January 2024, 01:17 PM | #36 |
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When AI gets good enough to excel at picking candidates for such jobs, it might just qualify for the job itself! But like I said in a later post, I think some jobs like this one might involve a lot of intangible qualifications. Like schmoozing, charm, and other skills used to pry money out of people, and rise to power in academic politics.
It seems more like casting an actor than hiring an IT person with a bulletpoint list of skills. |
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3rd January 2024, 01:20 PM | #37 |
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I think the search for a university president should be like Iron Chef. Get them into a kitchen arena, give them a major problem facing the university, and they have one hour to whip up a solution to the problem, along with an appetizer, entree and dessert. Three celebrity panelists would choose who gets the job. My panelists would be Kathy Griffin, Carrot Top, and some J-pop girl star who doesn't speak English but just giggles a lot.
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3rd January 2024, 01:24 PM | #38 |
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3rd January 2024, 01:28 PM | #39 |
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But some of our inputs are instincts, gut feelings, and ideas we can't elucidate and don't understand ourselves. It would be tricky to teach an AI that kind of thing. Or teach it how to recognize charisma, charm, poise, or their opposites. "He's okay on paper, but just way too awkward in manner" is something that could kill a lot of job prospects but it's not exactly quantifiable.
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3rd January 2024, 01:28 PM | #40 |
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Wasn't there an article a few years back, about Google trying to use an AI to help screen job applicants, and discovered that it had a racial bias? Apparently they'd trained it on a corpus of previous hires and their CVs, and the AI just applied the biased pattern in that corpus.
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