The implosion of Harvard academia

[Starlight]

Disparities in behaviour cannot be attributed to race, nor to history beyond a minimal influence. The differences therefore are indeed a result of society and culture, which is what makes excusing actions on the basis of race so fraught with risk. Antisocial and unethical behaviour excused on the basis of race creates a social environment that encourages antisocial and unethical behaviour.

In this case though, the accusations appear to be meritless: An academic panel reviewing the accusations against Gay, absolved her. Presumably the source generating this series of false accusations, is not particularly likely to have substantially more merit in the substance of the accusations this time around.

So it is not a case of accusations that have merit being excused on the basis of race. It is a case of accusations without merit being levied on the basis of race.

Even were it the case that the particular accusations turn out to have merit, one has to consider the potential unfairness in how the source of the accusations is targeting people. Consider a situation in which, say, 5% of the academics in an institution had plagiarised sufficiently such that they could have reasonable accusations of plagiarism levied against them. Let's say a nefarious person comes along, who is racist and sexist and hates black women in academia, so does their best to dig up dirt on the black women there. That person in their digging finds real plagiarism committed by 5% of the black women at the institution, and accuses them. That person, however, doesn't look into the work of people who were white or male at that institution, so all white or male plagiarisers at that institution get away scot-free even though they were plagiarising at the same rate. Is that fair? No.

A parallel can be seen in racial disparities in policing. If research shows that black and white people actually commit a certain crime with the same frequency, but we find the police are arresting black people for that crime at 10x the rate as they do white people, is that a problem? Yes. Even if 100% of the people police are arresting did the crime, the police aren't enforcing the law equally on both groups - the selective enforcement of the law is then leading to persecution of one group and overlooking the crimes of another group. That's a problem, in and of itself, even if the crimes being done are real, and even if the police are only ever arresting guilty people.

In this case, if someone is specifically searching the works of black women in academia, hoping to find plagiarism allegations to levy against them, then that's a problem, in and of itself, regardless of whether they find any real plagiarism or not - it's a case of racial and sexual persecution and it's targeted at minority groups / protected classes. If there was evidence that all academics were being subjected to equal levels of scrutiny, that would be fine, but I've seen no reason to suggest that's the case. Not only is the source apparently targeting black women, but the source has a history of making accusations against those racial and sexual targets that are found to be without merit in academic review. Making public meritless accusation against racial and sexual minorities is pretty awful.

[tabibito]

In this case though, the accusations appear to be meritless: An academic panel reviewing the accusations against Gay, absolved her. Presumably the source generating this series of false accusations, is not particularly likely to have substantially more merit in the substance of the accusations this time around.

So it is not a case of accusations that have merit being excused on the basis of race. It is a case of accusations without merit being levied on the basis of race.

The academic panel in question excused what seems to be blatant plagiarism. 90% of the total claims can be tossed into the "technical breach" bin - and those could never have made it past a reasonably diligent examiner. The remaining 10% are significantly more serious. They would not have been apparent to a reasonably diligent examiner, but had they been found, any one of them would have been actionable. Gay was not absolved - she lost her position, but retains a prominent position with Harvard. The question arises as to whether a person from within a different demographic would have received the same treatment ... "yes" should be, but is not, a foregone conclusion.

Even were it the case that the particular accusations turn out to have merit, one has to consider the potential unfairness in how the source of the accusations is targeting people. Consider a situation in which, say, 5% of the academics in an institution had plagiarised sufficiently such that they could have reasonable accusations of plagiarism levied against them. Let's say a nefarious person comes along, who is racist and sexist and hates black women in academia, so does their best to dig up dirt on the black women there. That person in their digging finds real plagiarism committed by 5% of the black women at the institution, and accuses them. That person, however, doesn't look into the work of people who were white or male at that institution, so all white or male plagiarisers at that institution get away scot-free even though they were plagiarising at the same rate. Is that fair? No.

An entirely pertinent point.

A parallel can be seen in racial disparities in policing. If research shows that black and white people actually commit a certain crime with the same frequency, but we find the police are arresting black people for that crime at 10x the rate as they do white people, is that a problem? Yes. Even if 100% of the people police are arresting did the crime, the police aren't enforcing the law equally on both groups - the selective enforcement of the law is then leading to persecution of one group and overlooking the crimes of another group. That's a problem, in and of itself, even if the crimes being done are real, and even if the police are only ever arresting guilty people.

By the aforementioned Gay, a professor was suspended without pay for two years, and had his department permanently disbanded, for an offence that drew the recommended penalty of attending some kind of "how to be socially acceptable" counselling sessions. Coincidentally (?) that same professor had shortly before the offence published results of two surveys (the second conducted because he did not believe the results of the first) with entirely different teams of researchers. The results of those surveys indicated that there was no statistically significant action taken by police to selectively target blacks. Since all that happened, four surveys conducted before the publication of that professor's findings, showing the opposite, conducted by another notable professor, were found to have been based on fraudulent data. The findings of the latter underpinned a large number of studies (many of which the latter had a hand in) that were undertaken during the interim. The notable professor (notable because of the studies) was stripped of his professorship for incompetence. "Selective enforcement" by the police would seem to be a myth.

In this case, if someone is specifically searching the works of black women in academia, hoping to find plagiarism allegations to levy against them, then that's a problem, in and of itself, regardless of whether they find any real plagiarism or not - it's a case of racial and sexual persecution and it's targeted at minority groups / protected classes. If there was evidence that all academics were being subjected to equal levels of scrutiny, that would be fine, but I've seen no reason to suggest that's the case. Not only is the source apparently targeting black women, but the source has a history of making accusations against those racial and sexual targets that are found to be without merit in academic review. Making public meritless accusation against racial and sexual minorities is pretty awful.

It is doubtful that a scatter-gun was used in checking material. Have these people been targetted because of their colour, or because they have drawn attention to themselves with some rather unseemly conduct. In Gay's case, it was almost certainly the latter.

[Starlight]

The academic panel in question excused what seems to be blatant plagiarism. 90% of the total claims can be tossed into the "technical breach" bin

The ones I saw, that were cited here, were all in the technical breach bin.

Gay was not absolved - she lost her position, but retains a prominent position with Harvard.

The academic panel absolved her. Harvard has a process that deals with about 100 accusations of plagiarism per year for it's students, it's not like it doesn't know how to review such accusations. Following that, rich donors kicked up a fuss, and so she had to be removed. It was disgusting corruption of money over academia.

Coincidentally (?) that same professor had shortly before the offence published results of two surveys (the second conducted because he did not believe the results of the first) with entirely different teams of researchers. The results of those surveys indicated that there was no statistically significant action taken by police to selectively target blacks. Since all that happened, four surveys conducted before the publication of that professor's findings, showing the opposite, conducted by another notable professor, were found to have been based on fraudulent data. The findings of the latter underpinned a large number of studies (many of which the latter had a hand in) that were undertaken during the interim. The notable professor (notable because of the studies) was stripped of his professorship for incompetence. "Selective enforcement" by the police would seem to be a myth.

LOL. Apply a bit of skepticism to the KKK propaganda you're being fed. There will have been 10,000 studies about crime and racial targeting and profiling. 4 studies getting thrown out and one showing the opposite result is a drop in the bucket. I would be 99.9999% certain that the one study with the opposite result by a guy who's out of his field was done wrongly in some way, and that's why it got the (wrong) opposite result to all the other thousands of studies.

[tabibito]

The ones I saw, that were cited here, were all in the technical breach bin.

The academic panel absolved her. Harvard has a process that deals with about 100 accusations of plagiarism per year for it's students, it's not like it doesn't know how to review such accusations. Following that, rich donors kicked up a fuss, and so she had to be removed. It was disgusting corruption of money over academia.

On what grounds was she absolved? From memory, the review found that there had been plagiarism, but not on a level that warranted action. That the review failed to identify any of the plagiarism that was subsequently found does not give cause for confidence in its diligence or its credibility. Who conducted the review? All that exists is Harvard's word that a review was conducted by independent academics who were not identified.

Let's see now:
per the Washington Free Beacon

"President Gay Plagiarized, but She Should Stay," read the headline of a Harvard Crimson editorial. "For Now." The paper says the allegations of plagiarism are focused on "her PhD dissertation and two of her 11 published journal articles," leaving out the many allegations relating to articles that were not peer-reviewed.

On the face of it, according to the Free Beacon, the Harvard Crimson (Harvard's in-house publication) published an admission that Gay had plagiarised, but it was no big deal. So what did the Free Beacon have to say for itself?

And here tis: (the link provided in the Beacon points to an article on the problems Gay had at the senate enquiry)
per statements by the board:

Though we remain duly impressed with President Gay’s academic accomplishments — from earning tenure at both Harvard and Stanford to receiving best-in-field awards for both her undergraduate thesis and PhD dissertation — we are deeply concerned by these allegations and are convinced some of them are indeed plagiarism.

All plagiarism is wrong and antithetical to our University’s academic mission. But not all plagiarism is equal.

Even more interesting is another little piece which was reasonably obvious but not demonstrable. Some of the authors whose works were plagiarised dismissed the complaints as trivial, but those authors who did find plagiarism of their works significant somehow usually don't get mentioned.

per an aside in the Crimson article responding to the board's claims
.

(Their [the board's] words should be taken with a grain of salt, however: The New York Times reported that academics more skeptical of Gay’s offenses refuse to go on the record, likely because of her powerful position.)

LOL. Apply a bit of skepticism to the KKK propaganda you're being fed. There will have been 10,000 studies about crime and racial targeting and profiling. 4 studies getting thrown out and one showing the opposite result is a drop in the bucket. I would be 99.9999% certain that the one study with the opposite result by a guy who's out of his field was done wrongly in some way, and that's why it got the (wrong) opposite result to all the other thousands of studies.

The Crimson editorial later devolves into a polemic against right wing action against the left wing politics of Institutions of Higher Learning. Overall, a person could be forgiven for concluding that the author of the editorial considers plagiarism to be forgivable if your politics are acceptable.

How many of those studies were contaminated? It wasn't just four studies that got thrown out, it was quite a number more: something to do with contamination by the professor responsible for the four. How many with opposite findings have been consigned to the garbage dump without ever seeing the light of day? How much note should scepticism take of consensus? It is not as though consensus is always right. Should scepticism only be applied to findings that we don't like?

[Mountain Man]

It's looking concerningly like a crusade against black women in academia.

That looks conserningly like a red herring.

[Mountain Man]

Seems very reasonable in this instance: It seems fairly clear the source of the accusations isn't just someone genuinely concerned about the quality of academic works in general and plagiarism in academia. The source is, instead, a partisan political conservative, who's doing a political (and anti-black? and anti-women?) crusade, and has found dubious-quality accusations of plagiarism to be a useful political tool.

If the origin of the plagiarism probe was academically motivated and being applied to all academics equally, that would be fine. But instead, it's just a targeted political hit job. There's no evidence that the people being targeted by the political hit-job are any worse than the untargeted professors - the people are being selected for targeting for political reasons not due to any fair and balanced or academically motivated analysis.

In Gay's case we saw these dubious-quality politically motivated accusations of plagiarism. Gay was then cleared by an academic review panel! Politics then intervened again, and, disgustingly, big-money-donors to the university stepped in and said they wanted Gay gone. Which is nothing but brazen disgusting political immoral corruption overruling academic decisions on an academic topic.

It seems to be repeating: The politically-motivated sources are choosing political targets for hit-jobs, and throwing politically motivated accusations of plagiarism against them. It's once again a morally repugnant attempt to attack someone in academia for political reasons. The source of the accusations should be drop-kicked.

Except the evidence of plagiarism in every case presented to date has not been dubious but irrefutable. It's why liberals like you, instead of challenging the evidence, have run full tilt into wild-eyed conspiracy theory territory.

[Mountain Man]

Generally speaking, there are two possible explanations for observed racial differences on any topic:
1. There are fundamental differences between the races, which would explain different outcomes.
2. There are not, so the reasons for the different outcomes must therefore be found in society and in history.

The racists love #1. Anyone who rejects race essentialism has to go #2.

In most countries, it isn't really an issue - everybody accepts #2. But in the US, it's clear that massive numbers of people, including many conservatives on this forum, are still #1. At this point I'm becoming convinced that a huge proportion of US conservatives in this forum have wardrobes full of white robes for their KKK events.

You won't find a single conservative on this forum who espouses #1. It's obviously #2, but in the case of the US, where racist liberals have worked diligently for many years to hold blacks and other minorities to a lower standard -- because it's liberals who believe #1 -- it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[tabibito]

Except the evidence of plagiarism in every case presented to date has not been dubious but irrefutable.

Some cases really are just so much fuss about trifles. Only a few make the grade for being egregious, but only one is enough to be actionable.

It's why liberals like you, instead of challenging the evidence, have run full tilt into wild-eyed conspiracy theory territory.

Motives might have played a part in singling out Gay - and there is at least one professor who has been provided more than enough motive. That doesn't alter the fact the evidence exists.

[One Bad Pig]

It's looking concerningly like a crusade against black women in academia.

There's nothing quite like the soft bigotry of low expectations.

[Cerebrum123]

There's nothing quite like the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Or as it used to be known as, "The White Man's Burden".

[rogue06]

It's looking concerningly like a crusade against black women in academia.

Yeah. That's exactly what it is.

[rogue06]

There's nothing quite like the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Still alive and well in the Democrat Party what with the party's leaders declaring that blacks aren't bright enough to know how to go online, and aren't smart enough to hire a CPA or lawyer to help them navigate through the labyrinth of government rules and regulations if they start a business.

[rogue06]

In this case though, the accusations appear to be meritless: An academic panel reviewing the accusations against Gay, absolved her.

Pretty much as the charge was first made and well before all of the amassed evidence was ever presented.

[seanD]

There's nothing quite like the soft bigotry of low expectations.

It's racism of the worst kind, because it comes as a wolf in sheep's clothing.

[Mountain Man]

Still alive and well in the Democrat Party what with the party's leaders declaring that blacks aren't bright enough to know how to go online, and aren't smart enough to hire a CPA or lawyer to help them navigate through the labyrinth of government rules and regulations if they start a business.

"Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids,"
-Joe Biden.